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7 


FORM  AND  CONTENT 

IN  THE 

CHRISTIAN  TRADITION 

A    FRIENDLY    DISCUSSION 

BETWEEN 

W.  SAND  AY,  D.D. 

LADY  MARGARET  PROFESSOR  AND  CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH 

AND 

K  P.  WILLIAMS,  M.A. 

CHAPLAIN-FELLOW    OF    EXETER   COLLEGE 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 

NEW  YORK,  BOMBAY  AND  CALCUTTA 

1916 


S213f 


PEEFACE 


It  should  be  explained  at  the  outset  that  the  discussion 
which  follows  is  quite  independent  of  another  which 
I  believe  will  be  pubUshed  in  the  same  external  style  and 
at  the  same  time.  I  happen  to  be  personally  a  connecting 
link  between  the  two  discussions,  and  the  outward  form 
which  they  have  assumed  follows  naturally  from  the 
subject-matter.  But  the  occasions  which  gave  rise  to 
them  are  wholly  distinct,  and  the  fact  that  both  give 
expression  to  views  opposed  to  mine  must  not  be  taken 
to  imply  any  further  concert  or  alhance  between  my 
critics.  There  are  really  three  positions  indicated,  each 
of  which  must  stand  upon  its  own  merits. 

The  present  discussion  arose  out  of  an  article  con- 
tributed by  me  to  The  Modern  Churchman  for  June  1915, 
and  I  am  indebted  to  the  editor  for  permission  to  reprint 
it.  It  had  been  read  just  before  as  an  address  at  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Churchmen's  Union.  The  article  was  written 
for  this  meeting  under  some  pressure,  and  I  am  afraid 
rather  less  quietly  than  might  have  been  wished.  But 
it  seemed  right  to  reprint  it  practically  as  it  stood  because 
it  was  in  this  form  that  it  lay  before  Mr.  WiUiams  ;  and 
there  may  perhaps  be  some  increase  in  frankness  and 
clearness  to  set  against  the  fault  of  over-emphasis. 
The  further  course  of  the  discussion  will  explain  itseK. 

We  agreed  between  ourselves  that,  as  the  writer  of  the 
concluding  paper  had  the  last  word  in  the  body  of  the 
book,  the  writer  of  the  Preface  should  have  a  limited  right 
of  final  reply,  just  to  remove  misunderstandings  and  to 
wind  up  the  discussion  on  any  point  that  might  need  it. 
I  think  I  can  promise  not  to  abuse  this  privilege. 

a  2 


iv    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

I  can  do  so  the  more  easily  because,  although  Mr. 
Williams  has  in  one  or  two  places  rather  misunderstood 
me  and  in  the  course  of  his  argument  ascribed  to  me  ideas 
which  I  am  far  from  holding,  he  has  yet  in  the  main  repre- 
sented my  views  with  conspicuous  fairness  and  often  with 
a  lucidity  for  which  I  am  specially  grateful  to  him.  I 
often  prefer  his  mode  of  statement  to  my  own.  In  saying 
this  I  ought  perhaps  to  add  that,  where  alternative  views 
are  attributed  to  me  (as  e.  g.  on  pp.  123,  128)  it  would, 
I  think,  always  be  safe  for  the  reader  to  assume  that  the 
more  moderate  and  reasonable  view  is  that  which  I  should 
adopt. 

I  am  sanguine  that  our  discussion  as  a  whole — whatever 
may  be  its  effect,  or  want  of  effect,  upon  opinion — will 
have  at  least  served  the  chief  purpose  for  which  it  was 
undertaken  :  that  of  making  the  two  positions  stand  out 
clearly  before  the  public  mind.  Where  this  has  been  done, 
it  may  be  understood  that  I  shall  not  make  any  further 
comment  simply  for  the  sake  of  making  comment.  There 
are,  however,  in  the  last  paper  just  a  few  points  that  still 
need  clearing  up  in  respect  to  (1)  the  nature  of  veracity 
(§  I,  pp.  119-21)  ;  (2)  the  historical  method  (§§  II,  III, 
pp.  121-5) ;  (3)  miracles  (§§  IV-XVII,  pp.  125-44) ;  (4) 
relativity  of  expression  (§§  XVIII-XXVI,  pp.  145-67). 
To  these  I  will  now  ask  leave  to  address  myself. 

(1)  (§  I,  pp.  119-21).  I  was  far  from  wishing  to  impute 
to  Mr.  Williams  any  '  indifference  to  truth  '  in  the  com- 
mon acceptation  of  the  term.  The  real  difference  between 
us  is  a  difference  in  the  definition  of  truth,  especially  in 
relation  to  authority.  I  think  I  understand  Mr.  WiUiams's 
motive  in  the  acceptance  of  authority  ;  and  I  should  be 
quite  willing  to  give  it  a  good  name — such  as  '  loyalty  '  or 
the  like.     But  I  should  not  naturally,  in  my  own  use  of 


Preface  v 

words,  call  the  result  obtained  exactly  '  truth  ',  because  it 
would  not  to  my  mind  possess  all  the  marks  or  criteria  of 
truth  that  I  should  consider  necessary.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  definition  of  truth  is  still  a  moot  point  among 
philosophers.  I  suspect  that  I  should  not  see  eye  to  eye 
with  Mr.  Williams  in  this  respect.  But  I  do  not  want  to 
assume  that  I  am  right  and  he  is  wrong. 

(2)  (§§  II,  III,  pp.  121-5).  In  regard  to  the  application 
of  modern  historical  methods,  I  should  wish  to  tone  down 
slightly  some  of  the  expressions  that  Mi*.  WilUams  has  used 
in  the  statement  of  my  views  ('a  degree  of  efficiency 
and  certitude  hitherto  undreamed  of  '  ;  '  complete  boule- 
versement  of  the  traditional  view  '  ;  '  mathematical 
certainty ').  Indeed  I  should  imagine  that  he  might,  on 
second  thoughts,  apply  the  same  process  with  advantage 
to  the  paragraphs  in  which  he  states  his  own  position 
('  entirely  dispute  '  ;  '  jettison  beliefs  '  ;  '  consciously 
aim  at  producing  a  houleversement  of  New  Testament 
tradition  ').  These  are  just  little  exuberances  of  expres- 
sion which  I  only  deprecate  because  I  do  not  wish  to  give 
the  idea  that  the  results  of  modern  methods  are  more 
certain  than  they  are.  They  profess  only  to  be  approxi- 
mate and  not  exact.  My  main  point  is  that  the  same 
methods  must  be  applied  in  precisely  the  same  way  to  the 
New  Testament  as  to  the  Old.  I  do  not  propose  to  assume 
that  the  result  will  necessarily  be  the  same  ;  though  I 
believe  that,  where  the  conditions  are  similar,  it  is  likely 
to  be.  There  are  two  further  conditions,  one  telling  one 
way  and  the  other  the  other.  The  first  is  that  there  will 
be  in  the  different  cases  different  degrees  of  attestation — 
which  may  be  presumed  to  be  on  the  whole  in  favour  of 
the  New  Testament  tradition.  But,  to  set  against  this, 
is  the  fact  that  the  New  Testament  writers  and  trans- 


vi    Form  and  Content  in  Cliristian  Tradition 

mitters  had  the  Old  Testament  before  them  and  were 
liable  to  be  influenced  by  it  in  the  direction  of  assimilating 
the  one  set  of  narratives  to  the  other. 

I  may  at  this  point  bring  in  a  reference  to  what  is  said 
on  pp.  142-4.  While  admitting  in  general  terms  that  the 
attestation  of  the  New  Testament  is  in  the  main  superior 
to  that  of  the  Old,  I  am  afraid  I  could  not  admit  that  it 
was  in  any  one  of  the  disputed  cases  so  superior  as  to  be 
decisive.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  points  in 
debate  do  not  in  any  case  cover  the  whole  of  a  complex 
incident  ;  they  only  affect  particular  features  of  it.  And, 
so  far  as  these  particular  features  are  concerned,  I  should 
certainly  maintain  that  the  evidence  was  insufficient  to 
establish  them.  That  is  a  point  to  which  I  have  given 
some  study,  and  I  am  not  speaking  at  random.  I  have 
said  that  the  very  best  New  Testament  evidence — the 
evidence  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  experiences  of  the 
Apostle  himself — is  in  none  of  these  instances  available. 
Two  of  them  depend  on  the  witness  of  St,  Luke  alone,  in 
parts  of  his  writings  which  do  not  possess  the  highest 
authority.  These — when  applied,  as  I  have  just  said,  to 
a  detail  and  not  to  a  whole  incident — would  not  be  enough 
in  themselves  to  sustain  it  even  if  it  had  been  in  itself 
perfectly  unexceptionable.  Still  less  can  they  bear  the 
weight  of  the  features  for  which  they  are  alleged.  No 
doubt  there  is  a  graduated  scale  of  documents.  But  there 
is  only  one  of  the  debated  points  for  which  the  evidence 
can  be  described  as  really  strong. 

This  one  point  is  in  the  Feeding  of  the  Multitude,  of 
which  we  have  two  versions.  But  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  I  only  challenge  a  single  detail  in  this  incident. 
That  something  like  it  happened,  I  have  no  doubt.  I 
quite  believe  that  there  was  a  meal,  which  was  in  some 
way  made  a  sacred  meal.     All  that  I  doubt  is  that  it 


Preface  vii 

satisfied  the  hunger  of  four  or  five  thousand  men.  My 
belief  is  that  this  one  detail  came  in  through  the  influence 
of  an  Old  Testament  parallel.  I  allow  that  the  narrative 
must  have  assumed  something  very  like  its  present  shape 
at  a  relatively  early  date — not  later,  I  should  say,  than 
the  decade  a.d.  50-60.  But  if  we  consider  the  mental 
attitude  of  those  by  whom  it  was  transmitted,  that  seems 
to  me  quite  possible.  We  have  seen  strange  things  rapidly 
come  to  be  believed  in  our  own  time.  I  will  return  to  the 
question  of  the  clauses  in  the  Creed  before  I  have  done. 

(3)  (§§  IV-XVII,  pp.  125-44).  At  the  outset  of  what 
is  said  about  Miracles  there  is  a  momentary  lapse,  not 
only  from  accurate  representation  but  (I  must  needs 
think)  from  clearness  of  thinking.  I  wilHngly  accept 
the  substitution  of  '  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry ' 
for  '  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion '.  But  it  is  a  very 
different  thing  to  say  that  certain  alleged  events  must 
not  '  contradict '  these  laws  and  to  say  that  they 
must  be  wholly  explicable  by  them.  I  should  never  have 
dreamed  of  saying  anything  of  the  kind.  It  would  be  as 
much  opposed  to  my  theory  of  the  universe  as  it  is  to  that 
of  Mr.  Williams.  I  am  relieved  from  the  necessity  of 
dwelling  upon  this,  because  §  VII  is  a  complete  and  satis- 
factory answer  to  §  VI.     I  have  nothing  to  add  to  it. 

When  I  speak  of  a  '  breach  '  or  '  contradiction  '  of  the 
laws  of  physics  and  chemistry,  I  mean  something  incon- 
sistent with  those  laws,  something  which  treats  them  as 
if  they  were  not  valid.  The  argument  which  Mi.  Williams 
directs  against  me  in  §  IX  is  one  that  I  have  dealt  with  at 
some  length  in  another  place.  It  happens  that  I  made 
use  of  the  same  illustration — the  catching  of  a  ball — ^to 
illustrate  the  difEerence  between  what  I  believe  to  be 
tenable  and  what  is  not.  Incidentally,  it  illustrates  also 
what  I  mean  by  a  cause  supra  naturam. 


viii    Form  and  Content  in  Chiistian  Tradition 

There  is  no  better  example  of  such  a  cause  than  that 
of  personal  initiative,  the  introduction  of  spirit  and  will. 
The  broad  line  which  I  took  was  that  we  have  examples 
all  round  us  on  the  largest  possible  scale  of  the  operation 
of  this  kind  of  cause.  We  can  see  what  kind  of  effect  it 
has  upon  the  lower  laws  of  matter  and  motion  (or  physics 
and  chemistry).  I  pointed  out  that  these  effects  are 
themselves  in  turn  subject  to  laws,  or  rather  to  certain 
regular  limitations.  The  action  of  spirit  or  mind  con- 
stantly overrides,  controls  and  deflects,  the  lower  laws  of 
matter.  But,  while  it  does  this,  it  never  '  contradicts  ' 
them.  The  interaction  of  spirit  and  matter  is  a  definite 
sphere  to  itself.  But  it  too  is  a  cosmos  and  not  a  chaos. 
It  has  laws  of  its  own  which  are  just  as  fixed  in  their  way 
as  the  lower  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry.  There  is 
always  a  special  process  of  adjustment  which  prevents 
any  real  breach  in  the  order  of  nature.  Nature  (i.  e.  these 
lower  phenomena  in  nature)  is  controlled  and  regulated 
by  spirit ;  but  this  very  control  is  itself  subject  to  rules 
and  limitations  :  naturae  non  nisi  parendo  imperatur. 
Mind  is  superior  to  matter,  but  its  superiority  is  exercised 
constitutionally,  and  not  despotically.  Laws  of  the  lower 
order  are  overruled,  but  they  are  never  violated. 

This  holds  good  for  all  the  infinite  variety  of  cases  in 
which  there  is  contact  and  influence  passing  to  and  fro 
from  mind  to  matter  and  from  matter  to  mind.  The 
human  will  exerts  an  astonishing  amount  of  power  in  its 
way  ;  but  it  never  fails  to  respect  the  appropriate  laws  of 
that  with  which  it  deals.  And,  as  far  as  our  experience 
goes,  what  is  true  of  the  human  will  is  equally  true  of  the 
Divine  Will.  It  too,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  works  through 
and  in  accordance  with  the  laws  which  it  has  itself  laid 
down.  But  if  it  does  so  in  the  present,  the  presumption 
is  that  it  has  done  so  equally  in  the  past.     Our  contention 


Preface  ix 

is  that  the  handful  of  alleged  cases  in  which  it  is  supposed 
to  have  done  otherwise  is  not  enough  to  prove  the  con- 
trary. This  handful  of  alleged  cases  is  far  more  easily 
and  naturally  explained  in  other  ways. 

That,  as  Mr.  Williams  rightly  sees,  is  the  ground  that 
I  wish  really  to  take  up.  He  quotes  another  example 
(besides  the  cricket  ball)  to  which  I  happen  to  have  given 
particular  attention.  The  story  of  the  Flood,  he  says, 
has  been  definitely  disproved.  '  But  nobody  has  ever 
proved,  or  presumably  ever  will  be  able  to  prove  (in  the 
sense  of  rigorously  certain  demonstration),  that  Elisha  did 
not  make  the  iron  to  swim  '  (p.  141).  No  ;  the  story  of 
Elisha  and  the  axe-head  has  not  been  disproved  '  in  the 
sense  of  rigorously  certain  demonstration  '.  But  it  is  very 
easily — and  I  cannot  help  thinking,  satisfactorily — ex- 
plained. It  is  well  known  that  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea 
are  so  impregnated  with  salt  that  their  specific  gravity  is 
considerably  higher  than  that  of  ordinary  water.  I  do 
not  know  whether  iron  will  float  in  the  Dead  Sea  or  not ; 
but  in  any  case  objects  that  would  sink  in  other  waters 
would  not  sink  in  these.  If  a  dweller  on  the  central  ridge 
of  Palestine  had  occasion  to  visit  the  shore  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  he  might  easily  see  a  phenomenon  of  this  kind,  and 
(in  Elisha's  day)  he  would  naturally  regard  it  as  a  miracle. 
There  would  thus  arise  a  class  of  miracle  of  this  kind  ;  and 
the  nameless  author  of  the  story  (not  to  be  identified  with 
the  writer  of  the  narrative,  and  perhaps  not  more  than 
half  conscious  of  what  he  was  doing)  would  have  plenty 
of  precedent  to  fall  back  upon.  The  Leprosy  of  Gehazi 
may,  I  believe,  be  explained  in  a  very  similar  way.  I  have 
myself  heard  a  well-authenticated  story  of  a  sudden 
mental  shock,  under  certain  pathological  conditions, 
causing  a  violent  outbreak  of  eczema.  An  ancient,  who 
was  also  not  an  expert,  would  not  distinguish  this  from 


X     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

leprosy.  And  if  an  incident  of  this  kind  happened,  not 
only  would  there  be  a  miracle,  but  a  class  of  miracles 
would  be  set  up  that  might  be  drawn  upon  indefinitely. 

These  are  just  instances  of  the  old-fashioned  rationalism, 
which  no  doubt  was  invoked  more  often  than  it  should 
have  been,  but  which  certainly  had  in  it  a  considerable 
element  of  truth.  We  have  learnt  in  these  days  not  to 
trust  too  much  to  any  one  mode  of  explanation.  A  wise 
man  will  not  dogmatize  about  the  origin  of  every  story 
that  comes  to  him.  He  will  be  content  if  he  can  see  that 
the  explanation  offered  is  reasonable  and  if  he  can  deter- 
mine the  general  type  under  which  it  will  fall. 

I  may  sum  up  my  view  of  Miracles  by  saying  that  there 
is  a  certain  class  of  details  (which  I  have  described  in  a  way 
that  I  think  will  be  recognizable,  though  others  may 
prefer  to  describe  them  differently)  which  I  believe  will 
be  found  in  the  last  resort  to  belong  rather  to  the  story 
than  to  the  ultimate  facts  which  lie  behmd  the  story  ;  and 
the  form  which  the  story  takes  is  determined  by  the  ideas 
current  in  the  minds  of  the  narrators. 

(4)  (§§  XVIII-XXVI,  pp.  145-67).  We  have  been  con- 
sidering and  discussing  the  permanent  and  variable  ele- 
ments in  the  Christian  Religion  under  the  heading  '  Form 
and  Content  in  the  Christian  Tradition '.  But  we  have 
not  yet  succeeded  in  reaching  very  much  common  ground. 
We  agree  that  there  is  a  real  distinction  between  Form  and 
Content ;  but  Mr.  WiUiams  seems  to  me  to  be  inclined 
to  minimize  this  distinction,  and  I  suppose  that  in  like 
manner  I  shall  seem  to  him  to  magnify  it.  This  holds 
good  especially  in  regard  to  what  I  have  called  the  '  rela- 
tivity of  expression '.  Mr.  WiUiams  seems  to  me  not  to  do 
justice  to  this,  but  rather  to  try  to  explain  it  away.  He  is 
so  anxious  to  make  his  forms  unchangeable  that  he  prac- 


Pi^eface  xi 

tically  in  many  cases — and  I  think  I  may  say  in  all  the 
disputed  cases — confuses  form  and  content  altogether. 

I  should  very  much  like  to  make  one  more  attempt  to 
expound  my  views  on  this  subject  before  I  close.  All  our 
other  differences  run  up  into  this. 

I  sometimes  wonder  whether  it  would  not  be  well  to 
revive  the  use  of  an  old  word,  in  a  somewhat  different 
application  from  that  which  has  been  usual — the  word 
'  dispensation '.  '  Period  '  might  serve  the  purpose  ;  but 
it  would  bring  out  only  the  idea  of  limitation  in  time, 
without  that  of  the  orderly  and  organized  arrangement  of 
contents  in  time.  If  we  look  back  over  the  history  of 
human  thought  from  its  first  dawnings  until  now,  we 
might  say  that  it  has  passed  through  a  number  of  '  dispen- 
sations ' — such  as  the  prehistoric,  the  ethnic,  that  of  the 
Old  Testament,  that  of  the  New  Testament  or  of  Christian 
Origins,  the  patristic,  the  mediaeval  or  scholastic,  the 
modern.  All  this  time  man  has  been  seeking  after  God, 
and  all  this  time  God  has  been  drawing  towards  Himself 
and  gradually  enlightening  the  spirit  of  man.  Whatever 
we  are  able  to  describe  or  reconstruct  in  imagination  of  the 
thought  of  the  past  has  been  the  resultant  of  these  two 
operations — conscious  and  unconscious  effort  and  aspira- 
tion on  the  part  of  man  and  (we  may  well  believe)  a  gracious 
leading  and  assistance  on  the  part  of  God.  Of  course 
there  has  been  no  hard-and-fast  line  between  the  different 
dispensations  ;  there  have  been  no  abrupt  transitions,  but 
each  has  melted  gradually  into  the  next.  For  purposes 
of  thought  they  stand  out  with  sufficient  clearness  ;  and 
yet  there  has  been  a  continuous  thread  of  assisted  endea- 
vour running  through  them.  Age  is  linked  to  age  ;  and 
yet,  within  each  age  as  well  as  throughout  the  historic 
process  from  first  to  last,  the  thought  of  man  has  always 
been  a  whole.     It  has  never  really  been  so  broken  up  into 


xii   Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

compartments  that  any  one  compartment  lost  touch  and 
relation  with  the  rest.  Rather,  there  has  been  a  constant 
interplay  ;  each  side  of  man's  being  has  worked  in  with 
every  other.  This  applies  to  the  highest  of  his  faculties 
as  well  as  to  the  lowest ;  it  applies  to  his  thoughts  about 
God  as  much  as  to  his  other  interests  in  life — such  as 
literature  and  art  and  science,  industry  and  commerce, 
political  and  social  relations.  But  in  any  given  '  dispen- 
sation '  man  can  only  use  the  mental  outfit  that  belongs 
to  him  in  his  place  in  that  dispensation  ;  his  ideas  are 
derived  from  and  proportioned  to  the  particular  stage  that 
he  has  reached  in  cultural  development.  His  ideas  about 
God  are  no  exception  to  the  rule.  In  proportion  as  we 
conceive  of  the  true  infinitude  and  wonder  of  the  Being 
of  God  we  shall  feel  more  and  more  the  inadequacy  of  our 
petty  definitions.  All  these  definitions  have  in  them  an 
element  that  we  must  call  x.  They  are  always  tentative 
and  approximate  ;  whatever  else  they  may  do,  we  are  sure 
that  they  will  never  exhaust  the  reality. 

Because  there  has  been  in  the  course  of  history  one 
Great  Manifestation  of  Godhead,  that  does  not  alter  the 
essential  conditions.  That  Manifestation  itself  is  rather 
subject  to  them.  From  the  first  moment  onwards  it  had 
to  be  described  in  relative  terms.  It  was  not  merely  that 
the  words  were  relative,  but  all  the  subordinate  complexes 
of  ideas  were  relative.  This  of  necessity  brought  them 
into  contact  with,  and  in  part  into  limitation  by,  the  other 
ideas  current  at  the  time.  As  these  changed,  the  whole 
expression  changed  ;  or  at  least  so  much  of  it  changed  as 
belonged  to  the  sphere  of  what  is  variable.  The  x  element 
remains  what  it  is  ;  but  it  is  always  x — something  that 
transcends  and  eludes  and  is  not  co-extensive  with  the 
definition. 

This,  I  should  contend,  is  true  of  all  the  disputed  clauses 


Preface  xiii 

of  the  Creed.  The  Virgin  Birth,  the  physical  Resurrection 
and  physical  Ascension,  are  all  realistic  expressions, 
adapted  to  the  thought  of  the  time,  of  ineffable  truths 
which  the  thought  of  the  time  could  not  express  in  any 
other  way.  To  conceive  of  them  realistically  was  natural 
and  right  in  the  age  in  which  they  took  shape.  Speaking 
for  myself  and  for  those  who  agree  with  me,  I  should  say 
that  it  was  no  longer  natural  and  therefore  no  longer  to  be 
enforced  as  right — ^to  be  taken,  if  we  please,  as  a  human 
symbol  for  x,  but  not  to  be  identified  in  any  hard-and-fast 
manner  with  it.  That  is  why  I  deprecate  the  strong 
insistence  on  what  Mr.  Williams  calls  'facts  '.  If,  instead 
of  '  facts ',  he  would  speak  of  '  descriptions  of  facts  ', 
I  should  have  less  reason  to  differ  from  him.  He  is 
working  in  a  right  direction  when  he  leaves  room  for  an 
element  of  agnosticism.  Perhaps  a  better  name  than 
'  agnosticism  '  would  be  '  a  sense — a  devout  sense — of 
mystery'.  I  can  quite  believe  that  Mr.  Williams  would 
agree  with  me  in  this.  For  myself,  as  I  have  said,  I  do 
not  deny,  and  have  no  wish  to  deny.  I  would  rather  fall 
back  upon  the  parable  :  '  the  servants  say  unto  him.  Wilt 
thou  then  that  we  go  and  gather  them-  up  ?  But  he  saith 
Nay  ;  lest  haply  while  ye  gather  up  the  tares,  ye  root  up 
the  wheat  with  them.  Let  both  grow  together  until  the 
harvest.'  I  would  not  even,  in  this  connexion,  speak  of 
'  tares '.  If  I  did,  it  would  only  be  in  order  to  distinguish 
that  which  is  transitory  from  that  which  is  eternal. 
'  When  that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  that  which  is 
in  part  shall  be  done  away.' 

I  know  that  I  shall  be  thought  of  as  an  innovator,  and 
I  know  that  there  are  many  who — whatever  I  may  do  or 
say — ^will  not  forgive  me  for  what  I  have  written  in  the 
way  of  innovation.     That  cannot  be  helped.     But  I  hope 


xiv    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

that  they  will  not  go  away  with  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the 
extent  to  which  I  am  really  innovating.  As  a  spiritual 
system,  Christianity  remains  for  me  just  precisely  what  it 
has  always  been.  There  are  not  a  few  Christian  beliefs 
in  my  interpretation  of  which  I  may  be  held  to  be  behind 
the  times.  The  Bible  is  still  to  me  the  highest  authority 
that  I  know.  But  it  is  true  that  I  pin  my  faith  not  so 
much  to  what  the  Bible  says  as  to  what  I  believe  that  it 
means  to  say  ;  in  other  words,  not  so  much  to  what  it  said 
in  the  letter  to  those  to  whom  it  was  first  given  as  to  what 
it  says  in  the  spirit  to  us  now.  It  is  in  the  Bible  considered 
as  history  that  the  change  is  greatest.  But,  even  here, 
I  would  do  no  more  than  put  that  construction  upon  it 
that  I  should  do  without  hesitation  if  it  had  been  a  less 
sacred  book.  Many  will  think  that  its  sacredness  pre- 
cludes this.  But  it  is  just  there — and  I  think,  in  prin- 
ciple, only  there — that  I  join  issue  with  them. 

W.  Sanday. 
June  1916. 

PS.  The  reference  in  the  first  paragraph  of  this 
Preface  was  to  a  similar  Discussion  between  the  Dean  of 
Christ  Church  and  the  writer,  which  was  to  have  been 
entitled  Spirit,  Matter,  and  Miracle,  and  which  it  was 
hoped  to  publish  along  with  the  present  volume.  It  was 
the  continuation  of  a  debate  opened  by  a  pamphlet  by  the 
Dean,  in  criticism  of  one  of  mine,  published  in  the  spring 
of  1914.  The  Dean  had  very  kindly  agreed  that,  as  in 
the  present  case  with  Mr.  Williams,  we  should  each  state 
our  case  under  the  same  cover.  The  scheme  worked  out 
on  similar  lines,  in  three  papers  on  each  side  ;  and  the  first 
paper  was  written  in  the  month  of  July.  Then  suddenly 
came  the  War,  and  the  Dean,  as  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
University,  was  at  once  involved  in  a  mass  of  new  and 


Preface  xv 

very  varied  and  onerous  work.  Yet  in  spite  of  this,  the 
discussion  ran  its  somewhat  intermittent  course,  and  some 
months  ago  was  brought  to  a  conclusion.  But  on  looking 
back  over  it  we  felt  that  it  had  lost  so  much  of  its  original 
interest,  that  the  controversy  out  of  which  it  arose  had 
been  so  far  forgotten,  and  that  the  public  mind  was  now 
so  deeply  occupied  with  other  things,  that  the  best  course 
on  the  whole  was  to  let  our  intention  lapse  and  not  go  on 
to  publication.  The  same  objections  did  not  seem  to  lie 
in  the  same  degree  to  the  other  debate,  which  has  been 
spread  over  a  shorter  period  of  time  and  is  more  self- 
contained,  the  paper  out  of  which  it  arose  being  reprinted. 
It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that  what  was  begun  as 
a  pamphlet  has  grown  practically  into  a  book. 

W.  S. 


ON  CONTINUITY  OF  THOUGHT 
AND  RELATIVITY  OF  EXPRESSION 

There  is  the  same  problem  in  the  world  of  thought  and 
in  the  world  of  external  nature — the  problem  of  recon- 
ciling the  elements  of  permanence  and  stability  with  the 
elements  of  change.  Since  the  days  of  Heraclitus  it  has 
been  seen  that,  from  one  point  of  view,  all  things  are  in 
flux  :  as  he  penetratingly  puts  it,  '  No  man  sets  foot  twice 
in  the  same  stream.'  It  is  true  that  in  another  place  he 
admits  that  in  one  sense  we  may  be  said  to  do  this,  while 
in  another  we  do  not.^  And  our  own  poet  Wordsworth, 
using  the  same  illustration,  draws  from  it  an  opposite 
moral.  In  one  of  his  Duddon  sonnets  he  rebukes  himself 
for  dwelling  too  much  on  the  transitoriness  of  life  : 

For,  backward,  Duddon,  as  I  cast  my  eyes, 
I  see  what  was,  and  is,  and  will  abide  ; 
Still  glides  the  Stream,  and  shall  for  ever  glide  ; 
The  Form  remains,  the  Function  never  dies. 

It  is  true  that  the  stream  is  flowing  and  its  waters  are  for 
no  two  seconds  the  same  ;  even  its  banks  are  crumbling, 
and  even  in  its  bed  silt  is  forming  and  pebbles  are  rolling 
down.  And  yet,  on  a  broader  view,  the  stream  continues; 
it  occupies  the  same  place  in  the  landscape,  and  irrigates 
the  same  meadows. 

The  Form  remains,  the  Function  never  dies. 
It  is  so  with  the  Christian  Faith.     There  are  the  great 

1  Ritter  and  Preller,  §  26,  Plat.  Cratyl  402  A : 

\iyii.  TTOU  'HpciAcXetror  on  -nuvTa  X^pft  Kul  olbiv  fJifvei,  Kai  noTafiov  pofj 
aneiKd^av  ra  ovra  Xe'-yei  o)s  8\s  is  tov  avTov  Trorafiop  ovk  fly  ifi3a'iris. 

The  other  fragment  has  : 

IIoTa^oitri  rolaiv  avToicnv  i fi^alvofiiv  re  koX  ovk  e/z^aiVo/ief,  eifxtv  re  koi 
OVK  fifitv. 

Heraclitus  was  an  astonishing  person. 

B 


2      Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

truths  about  God  and  Christ  ;  there  are  the  great  broad 
fundamental  experiences  of  the  Christian  life.  These  are 
permanent  and  unchangeable.  And  yet,  the  forms  under 
which  we  conceive  of  them  must  of  necessity  change,  with 
the  changing  apparatus  of  thought  through  which  they 
find  expression.  Every  age  has  its  own  intellectual  outfit. 
It  can  but  use  the  tools  that  it  has.  When  it  is  using  the 
language  of  another  age,  it  is  like  David  in  Saul's  armour  ; 
it  loses  all  its  freedom  and  efficiency  of  motion. 


Corresponding  to  these  conditions  there  are  two  guiding 
principles,  which  really  run  through  all  our  study  of  the 
Christian  past,  and  should  never  be  lost  sight  of.  They 
are  complementary  to  each  other. 

On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  continuity  of  thought,  in 
conjunction  with  the  identity  of  object.  All  Christian 
endeavour  in  all  the  ages  has  been  concentrated  on  God 
and  Christ.  It  has  had  for  its  aim  to  enrich  and  deepen 
man's  conception  of  Both  (an  orthodox  thinker  would  say 
of  the  Triune  God)  as  the  objects  of  his  worship  and 
devotion. 

This  identity  of  object  and  continuity  of  aim  and  efiPort, 
worked  out  in  the  fellowship  of  the  corporate  body  through 
the  successive  ages  of  Christian  history,  has  been  the 
element  of  permanence  and  the  bond  and  pledge  of  loyalty. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  principle  which  clearly 
recognizes  throughout  this  process  the  persistent  relativity 
of  expression.  This  is,  in  like  manner,  the  guarantee  of 
movement,  of  progress,  of  reality  and  freedom. 

This  latter  principle  of  the  '  relativity  of  expression '  is 
as  yet  by  no  means  fully  understood.  It  is  at  least  far 
from  being  consistently  grasped  and  acted  upon.  Indeed 
there  is  one  widespread  theory  which  is  diametrically 
opposed  to  it. 

This  is  the  theory  according  to  which  the  whole  body  of 


Dr.  Sanday  I  3 

Christian  doctrine  is  regarded  as  an  '  unalterable  deposit  '.^ 
But  I  must  speak  frankly  and  say  that,  for  myself,  I 
believe  that  theory  to  be,  root  and  branch,  from  first  to 
last,  wholly  untenable.  It  is  in  direct  conflict  with  the  ne- 
cessity and  nature  of  things,  and  with  most  certain  facts. 

It  is  commonly  based  on  certain  scriptural  passages  in 
which  the  Christian  Faith  is  spoken  of  as  a  '  deposit  ' 
{TrapadrJKr],  1  Tim.  vi.  20,  2  Tim,  i.  12-14),  and  especially 
on  that  phrase  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude  (v.  3),  '  the  faith 
once  delivered  unto  the  saints '.  But  no  one  has  ever 
proved,  or  can  prove,  that  these  expressions  are  a  pro- 
phetic anticipation  of  the  whole  body  of  Christian  tradi- 
tion, down  to  and  beyond  the  Athanasian  Creed.  The 
Christian  faith  at  the  time  when  the  words  were  written 
was  a  very  much  simpler  and  less  complicated  thing. 
I  know  it  will  be  said  that  the  later  developments  were 
implicitly  contained  in  this  earlier  nucleus,  as  the  oak  is 
contained  in  the  acorn.  But  there  is  just  this  most 
important  difference  that,  whereas  the  original  words 
apply  to  that  which  is  most  permanent  in  the  faith — I  do 
not  say  that  even  they  are  identical  with  it — the  present- 
day  application  of  them  is  made  to  cover  all  that  is  most 
relative  in  it. 

One  would  have  thought  that  the,  perhaps  at  first  sight, 
somewhat  ambiguous  language  of  the  Epistles  would  be 

^  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  Mr.  R.  A.  Knox's  little  tract, 
Modernism  :  Two  Vietvs  of  the  Truth,  will  not  miss  the  allusion.  As 
I  am  referring  to  this,  I  should  wish  to  express  my  sincere  gratitude 
for  the  kindly  words  which  occur  in  the  course  of  it,  more  particularly 
for  the  distinction  which  is  drawn  between  some  forms  of  French 
Modernism  and  the  English  variety  of  the  same  opinions.  It  is  quite 
true  that  in  this  controversy,  '  both  sides  believe  passionately  in  the 
existence  of  some  kind  of  intellectual  duty '.  It  is  also  a  great  pleasure 
to  read  the  following  :  '  I  do  not  want  here  to  make  any  imputations 
of  dishonesty  or  disingenuity  about  those  who  profess  their  belief  in 
these  formulas  in  a  different  sense  from  that  which  I  attach  to  them 
myself.  I  am  perfectly  confident  that  their  intentions  are  pure  in  the 
sight  of  God.' 

B  2 


4     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

sufficiently  guarded  from  misunderstanding  by  the  Parable 
of  the  Talents  in  the  Gospel.  The  Christian  faith  is 
a  talent  to  be  traded  with  and  used,  and  no  doubt  to  be 
somewhat  worn,  and  even  defaced,  in  using  ;  it  was 
certainly  never  meant  to  be  wrapped  up  in  a  napkin. 

But,  apart  from  this,  the  '  deposit-theory  ',  in  the  form 
in  which  it  is  employed,  is  to  my  mind  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  vast  petitio  principii.  It  is  made  to  include 
whatever  its  supporters  wish  it  to  include,  and  to  exempt 
them  from  the  necessity  of  establishing  their  case  on  more 
rigorous  grounds. 

I  need  not  say  to  my  present  audience  how  impossible 
it  is  to  isolate  a  single  department  of  knowledge,  and  to 
regard  it  as  immune  from  the  influence  of  time  and  the 
progress  of  thought.  Those  who  speak  of  an  '  unalterable 
deposit ',  are  simply  deceiving  themselves.  There  is  not, 
and  cannot  be,  any  such  thing  in  the  world  we  live  in. 
I  strongly  suspect  that,  even  while  they  use  this  language, 
they  are  exemplifying  the  fact  in  their  own  persons. 

We  recall  to  mind  those  impressive  lines  of  Matthew 
Arnold's  : 

Below  the  surface  stream,  shallow  and  light, 
Of  what  we  say  we  feel — below  the  stream. 
As  light,  of  what  we  think  we  feel,  there  flows 
With  noiseless  current  strong,  obscure  and  deep, 
The  central  stream  of  what  we  feel  indeed.  ^ 

Many  people  stop  short  at  the  surface  level.  They  say 
their  Creeds  on  what  they  believe  to  be  sufficient  grounds, 
and  honestly  think  that,  with  that,  their  duty  is  done. 
For  such  minds,  the  questions  which  others  discuss  openly 
and  consciously,  are  relegated  to  the  region  of  the  sub- 
conscious. So  far  as  such  questions  are  entertained  at  all, 
it  is  subconsciously  and  not  consciously.  The  hatches 
are  shut  down  upon  them. 

However  this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  for 

1  St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  p.  83 ;  compare  Life  and  Letters  of 
Matthew  Arnold  ii,  29.     I  owe  this  second  reference  to  a  friend. 


Dr.  Sanday  1  5 

every  one,  some  of  the  beliefs  stored  up  in  his  mind  are  far 
more  living  and  active  than  others.  The  rest  he  holds  in 
a  descending  scale  of  tenacious  vitality.  Some  of  them 
are  like  atrophied  members  of  the  human  body  ;  for 
practical  purposes  they  are  quite  dead.  The  reason  is 
that  the  life-blood  no  longer  flows  through  them  ;  they 
are  not  assimilated  ;  they  are  so  much  waste  matter. 
The  man  says  that  he  believes  them  and  thinks  that  he 
believes  them  (quite  honestly)  ;  but  he  does  not  believe 
them  indeed.  And  it  is  only  in  its  higher  sense  that  I  can 
bring  myself  to  use  the  word  '  belief '. 

One  word  is  too  often  profaned 
For  me  to  profane  it. 

Truth  is  correspondence  with  reality,  or  with  the  best 
conception  we  can  form  of  reality.  And  the  test  of  truth 
is  the  extent  of  this  correspondence.  Truth  imposed,  or 
truth  that  a  man  is  compelled  to  say,  is  to  me  no  truth 
at  all. 

II 

All  this  that  I  have  been  saying  seems  to  me  to  be  no 
matter  of  speculation  and  theory,  as  to  which  there  can  be 
discussion  to  decide  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong,  but  plain 
statement  of  fact.  It  may  of  course  be  taken  or  left  ;  but 
in  my  belief  it  ought  to  be  taken. 

Applying  it  to  the  history  of  Christianity,  the  different 
phases  of  Christian  doctrine  are  all  so  many  attempts  to 
express  some  broad  idea  in  the  forms  that  appealed  most 
to  the  particular  age  to  which  they  belonged.  This  ten- 
dency appears  from  the  very  first  and  within  the  New 
Testament  itself.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  St.  Paul's  presentation  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  was  determined  largely  by  his  Pharisaic 
training.  Behind  it  there  lies  a  deep  and  intense  con- 
viction ;  but  the  forms  in  which  that  conviction  is  ex- 
pressed came  from  his  surroundings.     In  the  age  which 


6      Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

immediately  followed,  the  metaphor  of  '  ransom '  was 
most  prominent.  Anselm  elaborated  his  views  in  con- 
nexion with  mediaeval  juristic  ideas  of  '  satisfaction  '  ; 
and  so  on.  In  other  words,  each  of  these  phases  in  the 
history  of  the  doctrine  was  relative  to  the  age  through 
which  it  was  passing,  and  took  its  shape  from  the  whole 
body  of  thought  prevailing  at  the  time.  It  is  easy  to 
prove  this,  and  it  has  been  abundantly  proved — last,  and 
not  least,  in  Dr.  Rashdall's  recent  Bampton  Lectures. 
But,  that  does  not  the  least  mean,  in  my  view  of  the 
matter,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  reduced  to 
nothing  and  finally  disposed  of.  In  all  this  working  of 
the  human  mind  on  the  subject  of  the  Atonement,  there 
were  elements  of  permanence  as  well  as  elements  that 
were  transitory  and  ephemeral.  If  we  would  see  what 
these  are,  I  believe  that  our  best  course  is  to  go  back 
behind  the  Christian  era  altogether,  to  Isaiah  liii.  and  the 
associated  passages  of  the  Old  Testament.  If  I  under- 
stood him  rightly,  in  those  of  his  Lectures  which  I  was 
able  to  hear.  Dr.  Rashdall  contented  himself  with  referring 
to  these,  and  did  not  expound  or  apply  them.  But,  from 
my  point  of  view,  this  is  like  putting  on  the  stage  the  play 
of  Hamlet  with  the  part  of  Hamlet  left  out. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  to  my  mind  a  very 
good  example  of  the  necessity  for  a  balanced  combination 
of  the  principle  of  continuity  of  thought  with  relativity 
of  expression.  And  I  would  extend  this  principle  all 
round.  I  believe  that  it  holds  good  equally  well  in  the 
more  audacious  departures  of  the  present  day. 


Ill 

I  will  take  my  courage  in  my  hands  and  speak  to  you 
for  a  moment  about  one  of  these  audacious  departures. 
I  am  before  you  as  a  suspect,  as  one  under  a  cloud,  because 
of  the  opinion  which  I  have  expressed  on  the  subject  of 
the  Virgin  Birth.     The  opportunity  seems  to  me  suitable 


Dr.  Sanday  I  7 

for  saying  exactly,  or  as  exactly  as  I  can,  what  I  really 
think  on  this  subject.  I  am  in  a  position  to  do  so  now 
rather  more  maturely  than  when  last  I  alluded  to  it. 

I  should  be  prepared,  if  I  had  the  time,  to  enter  into 
full  detail  and  to  examine  the  evidence  on  the  subject  as 
a  whole.  But  that  would  be  impossible  on  this  occasion, 
and  I  do  not  know  when  I  shall  be  able  to  attempt  it. 

I  said  some  time  ago — I  do  not  at  the  moment  remember 
where,  but  that  does  not  matter — that  I  will  not  put,  [or 
be  a  party  to  putting]  '  nots '  into  the  Creeds.  Some 
people  may  think  that  I  have  changed  my  mind ;  but 
I  have  not.  I  will  not  affirm  everything  in  the  Creeds — 
but  that  is  different.  That  is  precisely  where  I  draw  the 
line,  and  believe  myself  to  be  right  in  drawing  the  line. 
It  is  also,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  where  our  Bishops  drew 
the  line  in  the  joint  resolutions  which  they  issued  last  year. 
I  believe  that  they  exercised  a  very  wise  discretion. 
I  speak  for  myself,  and  for  my  own  confession  of  faith. 
I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  some  who  will  say  that, 
having  gone  so  far,  I  ought  to  go  the  next  step  further  ; 
and  some  might  hint  that  I  drew  back  to  save  my  skin. 
So  far  as  I  know  myself  and  my  own  motives,  it  is  not  to 
save  my  skin.  If  I  thought  it  the  honest  thing  to  say 
a  point-blank  No,  I  do  not  think  that  I  should  hesitate  to 
say  it.  But  I  plead  guilty  to  being  one  of  those  who 
believe  that  truth  lies  in  a  nuance  ;  and  this — the  differ- 
ence between  not  affirming  and  denying — is  the  precise 
nuance  in  which  I  think  it  lies.  The  abstinence  from  (full) 
affirmation  is  consistent  with  a  great  amount  of  partial 
affirmation. 

I  will  explain  just  what  I  believe  to  have  been,  and  in 
a  manner  to  be,  the  real  function  of  the  clause  in  the  Creed 
about  the  Virgin  Birth. 

The  Jews,  as  we  know,  used  habitually  to  speak  of 
raising  '  a  fence  or  hedge  round  the  Law '.  We  should 
perhaps  more  naturally  take  a  metaphor  from  fortifica- 
tion, and  speak  of  '  throwing  up  an  outwork  '  in  front  of 


8      Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

our  citadel.     In  either  case  the  idea  would  be  of  keeping 
the  enemy  at  arm's  length  ;  putting  an  additional  obstacle 
in  his  way,  before  he  could  begin  to  lay  sap  or  mine  to  the 
keep  or  centre  of  the  position.     If  one  may  venture  to 
ascribe  motives  to  the  Almighty,  that  is  why  I  beUeve  Him 
to  have  decreed  that  the  full  belief  in  the  Virgin  Birth 
should  prevail  for  so  long.     There  are  abundant  analogies 
for  this  in  the  authenticated  history  of  mankind  and, 
more  particularly,  in  the  history  of  the  reception  and 
interpretation  of  the  Creeds.     One  of  the  greatest  mis- 
takes which  men  have  made,  and  are  still  making,  about 
God,  is  in  attributing  to  Him,  in  the  ages  of  the  past  as 
well  as  in  the  present,  what  I  may  venture  to  call  a  punc- 
tilious determination  of  the  wiU  towards  securing  the 
prevalence  throughout  the  world  of  what  we  call '  literal ' 
truth.     All  through  the  early  ages  of  mankind  '  poetical ' 
truth  has  been  the  rule,  and   '  literal '  the  exception. 
This  may  be  different  from  what  we  should  expect.     But 
anyhow  it  is  plain  matter  of  fact,  and  we  must  not  shut 
our  eyes  to  it.     It  is  not  for  us  to  know  the  reasons  for 
this  particular  characteristic  of  the  workings  of  Divine 
Providence  ;  they  are  beyond  us,  and  belong  to  those  vast 
rangings  through  time  and  space  by  which  these  workings 
are  governed.     It  may  well  be  that  '  the  times  of  this 
ignorance ',  or  of  this  latitude,  are  coming  to  an  end.    We 
are  not  concerned  with  the  future,  but  only  with  the  past  ; 
and  in  regard  to  the  past  we  must  resign  ourselves  not  to 
know,  or  to  know  very  imperfectly.     Even  we  men,  dull- 
sighted  and  falhble  as  we  are,  can  see  a  multitude  of 
reasons,  short  of  its  literal  truth,  for  the  prevalence  of  the 
belief  in  the  Virgin  Birth  ;   it  has  been  of  immense  and 
prolonged  benefit  to  mankind.     Even  at  this  day,  it  goes 
hard  to  let  it  drop  out  of  our  range  of  vision  ;   and  only 
(what  some  of  us  think)  imperious  necessity  compels  us  to 
loosen  our  hold  upon  it.     I  should  on  all  grounds,  and  in 
particular  out  of  piety  towards  the  past,  refuse  to  deny 
the  Virgin  Birth.     Those  who  will  may  think  that  I  am 


Dr,  Sanday  I  9 

splitting  a  hair  in  doing  so.  But  I  find  myself  able  to 
subsume  the  idea  of  the  Virgin  Birth  under  the  yet  larger 
and  more  important  idea  of  Supernatural  Birth.  I  will 
venture  to  express  my  meaning  in  a  phrase  :  it  all  seems 
to  me  to  stand  (sit  venia  verho)  for  the  direct  influx  of  Deity 
into  manhood. 

We  are  prepared  for  such  a  conception  by  our  belief  in 
Divine  Immanence  ;  it  is  no  strain  upon  us  to  conceive  of 
a  supreme  and  unique  act  and  form  of  this  Immanence. 
And,  with  all  possible  deference  for  my  revered  friend, 
Dr.  Swete,  if  we  can  conceive  of  it  under  a  form  that  is  in 
accordance  with  nature,  that  is  far  easier  for  some  of  us 
than  to  think  of  it  under  conditions  that  we  should  call 
contra  naturam. 

Again,  if  I  had  time,  I  should  be  prepared  to  show  that 
this  form  of  the  conception  was  entirely  congruous  with 
all  the  Old  Testament  analogies.  The  Jews — without  any 
exception,  so  far  as  I  know — thought  of  divine  intervention 
in  human  births  as  something  superadded  to  the  natural 
process,  not  as  a  mutilation  of  it.  The  idea  of  divine 
fatherhood  taking  the  place  of  human  fatherhood,  is 
pagan  and  not  Jewish.  That  is  one  of  the  puzzles  attach- 
ing to  the  stories  of  the  Nativity  in  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  Luke.  I  am  not  sure  that  anything  un-Jewish  is 
implied  by  the  latter  Evangelist.  It  is  implied — or  shall 
I  say,  half -implied  ? — by  the  former  ;  for  there  are  traces, 
not  wholly  obliterated,  that  the  Genealogy  which  he 
incorporated,  originally  ended  'Joseph  begat  Jesus'. 
I  doubt  if  the  other  idea  arose  actually  in  Palestine  ; 
I  suspect  that  it  came  in  somewhere  on  the  outskirts,  from 
Syrian  syncretism. 

IV 

We  are  met  for  counsel,  and  I  would  venture  to  expand 
the  main  point  of  what  I  have  just  been  saying  into 
a  piece  of  more  general  advice  or  suggestion.  I  think 
that  we  should  all  be  on  our  guard  against  'denials'. 


10    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  IVadition 

I  do  not  think  that  a  blank  and  unqualified  denial — 
putting  a  '  not  '  into  the  Creed — is  anywhere  required 
of  us. 

Incidentally  I  may  observe — not  as  a  motive,  but  as 
a  simple  statement  of  fact — that  by  abstaining  from 
denials  we  make  our  own  position  as  English  Churchmen 
impregnable.  So  long  as  we  are  on  our  guard  against  the 
point-blank  '  not ',  no  one  can  touch  us. 

This  maybe  worldly  wisdom,  but,  to  my  thinking,  it  is 
truth  as  well.  And  it  is  because  it  is  truth  that  I  com- 
mend the  advice  to  you. 

Relative  truth,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  still  essen- 
tially truth  and  not  falsehood.  For  many  long  centuries 
it  may  have  been  the  best  truth  available.  In  any  case, 
it  is  what  God  has  willed  for  a  time,  if  not  in  permanence  ; 
and  we  can  never  think  or  speak  of  it  otherwise.  That 
fact  alone  precludes  the  possibility  of  '  denial '.  Relative 
truth  is  not  negatived  but  superseded.  The  nearest 
analogy  in  nature  is  the  way  in  which  the  snake  sloughs  its 
skin.  The  old  skin  does  not  come  off  until  the  new  skin 
is  fully  formed. 


There  is  another  practical  suggestion  which  I  will  make, 
if  you  will  allow  me.  Our  object  is  to  keep  up  the  fullest 
possible  continuity  with  the  past.  Whatever  the  out- 
side world  may  thmk  of  us,  we  are  not  disloyal  ;  we 
are  not  indifferent  to  our  inheritance.  We  too  are 
anxious  that '  all  our  days  ' — all  the  days  of  the  Christian 
Church — 

should  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety. 

Those  of  us  who  are  students  seek  to  attain  this  end 
by  an  ever  deepened  study  of  the  past.  They  undertake 
that  study  in  no  cold,  detached,  dispassionate  spirit. 
They  '  think  upon  the  stones  of  Zion  '  as  rich  with  history. 


Dr.  Sanday  I  11 

as  the  member  of  an  ancient  and  illustrious  family  thinks 
upon  the  stones  of  his  ancestral  home. 

Study  undertaken  in  this  spirit  cannot  be  too  sympa- 
thetic. The  mind  that  has  a  true  sense  of  continuity  will 
always  be  seeking — not  only  to  understand  the  formulae 
which  it  is  investigating,  not  only  to  enter,  and  to  enter 
fully,  into  the  grounds  on  which  they  were  based,  but  to 
steep  itself  in  the  spirit  which  lay  behind  them  ;  it  will 
be  always  trying  to  catch  something  of  the  balance  and 
breadth  of  view  which  is  distinctive  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Church  Universal  and  which  marks  them  off  from  the 
narrower  shibboleths  of  the  sects.  Because  we  in  these 
latter  days  are  not  able  to  adopt  as  our  own  the  exact 
expressions — iurare  in  verba — of  the  Old  Masters,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  we  shall  not  have  a  great  reverence 
for  them  ;  that  we  shall  not  try  to  live  again  their  life, 
and  to  make  the  spirit,  if  not  the  letter,  of  their  reasoning 
a  pattern  for  our  own. 

But  the  particular  point  of  practical  suggestion  that 
I  would  ask  leave  to  make,  is  that  we  should  not  mix  up 
our  study  of  the  past  with  our  attempts  at  definition  and 
formulation  in  the  present.  Ancient  and  modern  are 
better  kept  apart.  We  shall  spoil  our  study  of  the  ancient 
if  we  are  constantly  intruding  into  it  modern  questions 
and  modern  difficulties  ;  and  we  shall  equally  hamper  the 
free  endeavour  to  express  ourselves  in  the  language  of  our 
own  day,  if  we  burden  ourselves  with  questions  which 
really  belong  to  the  older  context  and  not  to  our  own. 
Let  us  look  at  the  ancient  world  with  the  eyes  of  the 
ancient  world,  and  then  at  the  modern  with  the  eyes  of 
the  modern.  Let  us  try  to  think  out  each  set  of  con- 
clusions by  itself  before  we  attempt  to  combine  them. 
When  we  know  accurately  what  the  ancients  thought  and 
why  they  thought  it,  we  shall  be  better  able  to  find 
equivalents  for  their  teaching  in  terms  that  are  frankly 
and  genuinely  modern. 


12    Form  and  Conte7it  in  CImstian  IVadition 

VI 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  have  any  desire 
'  to  jettison  the  Creeds  '.  I  do  not  say  that  we  might  not 
like  if  we  could — though  of  course  we  cannot — to  redraft 
them.  Any  such  idea  can  at  present  be  nothing  more 
than  a  pious  aspiration.  And  yet  it  is,  I  hope  and  believe, 
an  aspiration  with  some  substance  in  it.  It  may  be 
realized  in  that  day — which  our  grandchildren  may  see, 
if  not  our  children — '  the  Parliament  of  Man,  the  Federa- 
tion of  the  World ',  when  the  Churches  are  reunited. 

We  can  conceive  even  now  the  lines  on  which  we  should 
like  to  see  the  Creeds  redrafted.  We  should  like  to  see 
them  no  longer  what  they  largely  are — so  many  negations 
of  heresy,  but  real  constructive  summaries  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  us.  In  the  meantime  we  look  up  to  them  as 
great  historic  monuments,  landmarks  and  beacons,  which 
still  show  us  the  way  we  should  go,  although  they  are 
somewhat  worn  and  weather-beaten.  We  always  think 
of  them  as  what  God  has  willed.  They  are  clothed  in 
language  that  was  natural  and  suitable  at  the  time — and 
not  only  so,  but  the  product  of  deep  and  strenuous  think- 
ing. Even  if  we  regard  them  as  relative  rather  than 
absolute,  yet  as  relative  they  have  the  strongest  claims 
on  our  respectful  attention.  They  are  a  constant  re- 
minder of  the  direction  in  which  we  should  aim. 

VII 

The  chief  characteristic  of  our  modern  thinking  about 
the  deepest  things  in  the  universe,  is  its  greater  simplicity. 
The  difference  between  ancient  and  modern  methods  all 
points  in  this  direction.  We  should  never  think  now  of 
working  out  our  beliefs  with  the  minuteness  aimed  at  in 
the  Early  Creeds.  The  methods  employed  in  their  con- 
struction lent  themselves  to  minute  definition.  They  were 
more  like  the  codifying  of  a  body  of  law  than  a  statement 
of  the  foundations  of  true  religion. 


Dr.  Sunday  I  13 

In  drawing  up  the  Creeds,  the  ancients  went  upon 
a  number  of  assumptions  that  we  can  make  no  longer. 
They  assumed  the  strict  inerrancy  of  all  the  Scriptures  ; 
they  assumed  the  literal  and  equal  accuracy  of  all  the 
narratives  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  alike.  They 
had  behind  them  a  different  Weltanschauung  from  ours. 
They  thought  of  the  sky  as  a  solid  vault  resting  on  pillars  ; 
they  thought  of  the  sun  and  moon  and  planets  as  fixed  in 
concentric  spheres,  which  revolved  within  one  another. 
They  believed  that  irregularities  occurred  in  the  order  of 
nature  without  any  of  the  limitations  that  we  should  set 
to  them  now.  It  is  really  out  of  the  question  that  the 
young  men  of  the  present  day  should  be  expected  to 
subscribe  to  every  item  in  formulae  constructed  under 
conditions  such  as  these. 

The  principle  which  enables  our  young  men  to  accept 
the  Creeds,  is  that  which  I  have  had  in  view  throughout 
this  paper,  the  principle  of  the  relativity  of  expression. 
They  believe  that  the  Creeds  are  true,  not  so  much  in  the 
minute  technical  detail  which  was  in  men's  minds  at  the 
time  when  they  were  composed,  as  on  broad  spiritual 
lines.  They  would  not  deny  the  technical  details  ;  they 
believe  that  they  all  had  a  certain  relative  Tightness  in  the 
periods  that  understood  and  could  assimilate  them  ;  they 
are  perfectly  ready  to  believe  that  the  good  Providence  of 
God  presided  over  the  whole  evolution.  But  they,  none 
the  less,  believe  that  God  has  '  provided  some  better  thing 
for  us,  that  they,  without  us,  should  not  be  made  perfect '. 

It  does  not  really  matter  that  all  the  living  beliefs  of  the 
present  day  cannot  be  put,  or  must  be  imperfectly  put, 
into  words.  A  great  deal  may  remain  as  a  matter  of 
feeling  rather  than  of  words  ;  in  the  sense  in  which 
Wordsworth  wrote  : 

We  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know. 

The  central  belief  of  Christendom  is  itself  an  example 
of  this.     All  the  terms  in  which  it  is  described  in  the  New 


14    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

Testament  are  themselves  relative  terms.  They  all  have 
their  history,  and  they  must  be  interpreted  in  accordance 
with  that  history.  Of  course  we  must  fill  our  minds  with 
this  to  the  very  best  of  our  ability.  It  may  not,  in  the 
end,  be  easy  to  digest  the  result  into  a  sentence.  But  we 
shall  most  certainly  go  away  saying  to  ourselves,  '  My 
Lord  and  my  God.' 

VIII 

If  the  main  result  of  modem  thought  as  applied  to  the 
subject-matter  of  the  Creeds  is  a  general  tendency  to- 
wards simplification,  that  should  remove  from  those  who 
are  committed  to  it  at  least  one  of  the  accusations  that  are 
often  brought  against  them.  We  are  told  that  Modernism 
tends  to  place  a  gap  between  the  learned  and  the  simple. 
Just  the  contrary.  It  tends  to  bring  the  learned  and  the 
simple  nearer  together.  Its  whole  effect  ought  to  be  to 
induce  the  learned  to  formulate  their  beUefs  in  terms 
which  they  can  share  whole-heartedly  with  the  simple. 
It  is  really  the  Traditionalists  who  do  what  they  accuse  us 
of  doing.  They  would  bind  upon  the  unlearned  all  the 
technical  apparatus  of  ancient  tradition.  Of  course  they 
bind  it  upon  themselves  as  well  as  upon  others.  But,  to 
say  the  truth,  they  do  not  succeed  in  binding  it  upon 
either.  The  human  spirit  refuses  to  be  bound  in  such 
a  way.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  exemplify  those  lines 
of  Matthew  Arnold's.  They  know  what  they  say  they 
feel,  and  they  know  what  they  think  they  feel  ;  but  they 
do  not  know  what  they  feel  indeed. 

What  does  the  average  worshipper  reaUy  make  of  the 
Nicene  and  Athanasian  Creeds  ?  What  does  he  reaUy 
make  of  many  of  the  Psalms  and  Lessons  ?  There  is 
always  enough  left  of  which  he  can  make  something,  but 
in  these  parts  of  the  services  there  must  be  always  a  great 
deal  that  is  simply  unassimilated. 

So  far  from  setting  a  premium  upon  learning,  the 
tendency  of  the  modernist  is  all  the  other  way.     He  re- 


Dr.  Sanday  I  15 

gards  the  Creeds  as  products  of  excessive  intellectualism . 
What  he  wants  to  do  is  to  get  out  of  the  grooves  of  these 
over-minute  and  sometimes  sujierfiuous  definitions.  The 
modernist  seeks  for  his  ideal  quite  at  the  other  end  of  the 
scale.  He  is  moved  to  his  depths  by  the  sight  of  the 
simple  saint  upon  his  knees.  He  would  like  to  put  into 
his  creed, 

Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

All  this  does  not  prevent  the  man  to  whom  is  committed 
the  talent  of  learning  from  making  such  use  of  it  as  he 
can.  It  is  part  of  the  obligation  laid  upon  him.  But  he 
would,  none  the  less,  join  from  his  heart  in  St.  Paul's 
correction. 

And  yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more  excellent  way. 

IX 

One  other  consequence  follows  from  this.  The  genuine 
modernist,  who  has  really  taken  in  the  principle  of  '  the 
relativity  of  expression  ',  will  have  no  false  pedantry  about 
him  in  disparaging  the  value  of  either  the  thought  or  the 
expression  of  previous  ages.  If  he  seeks  to  express  his 
own  thought  in  the  sincerest  language  he  can  find,  it  is 
not  from  any  petty  ambition  to  be  '  up  to  date  '.  He  has 
no  Pharisaical  feeling  of  superiority  towards  his  next  door 
neighbour  who  remains  at  a  less  advanced  stage.  He  is 
concerned  with  his  own  duty,  and  he  avoids  comparisons 
of  this  kind.  He  always  respects  the  honest  convictions 
of  another,  even  though  they  may  be  a  little  behind  the 
times.  It  is  better  to  be  behind  the  times  than  to  be 
puffed  up  with  the  conceit  of  theories  half  digested  and 
half  understood.  It  is  always  safe  advice  to  one  who  is 
struggling  out  of  one  phase  into  another,  not  to  be  in  too 
great  a  hurry  but  to  make  sure  of  his  ground,  to  proceed 
pedetentim,  by  one  step  at  a  time. 


16    Form  and  Content  in  Chnstian  Tradition 


The  great  aim  (as  I  have  said  in  another  place)  of  the 
Modernist  Quest  is  the  unification  of  thought.  There  have 
been  times  when  the  thought  of  an  age  has  been  com- 
pletely unified.  It  was  so  in  Clement  of  Alexandria  and 
Origen  ;  it  was  so  in  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  the  School- 
men. But  from  the  Reformation  onwards,  with  the 
insistence  upon  verbal  inspiration  on  the  one  side,  and 
with  the  development  of  the  natural  sciences  and  of  a 
purely  lay  philosophy  on  the  other,  there  was  for  a  long 
time  an  increasing  divergence  between  theology  and 
secular  thinking.  This  began  to  be  reduced  as  the  critical 
movement  gradually  made  itself  felt ;  and  various  half 
measures  have  been  taken,  and  various  half-way  halting- 
places  have  been  erected.  But  only  with  the  rise  of 
Modernism  can  it  be  said  that  the  frank  and  full  unifica- 
tion of  secular  and  religious  thought  has  come  to  be  faced 
as  a  definite  ideal.  We  may  be  sure  that,  once  clearly 
grasped,  this  ideal  will  not  be  let  go  again. 

Until  the  beginning  of  Modernism,  the  Church  of  Christ 
had  been  content  to  let  unification  go  by  the  board. 
There  has  always  been  one  little  corner  of  the  globe  that 
has  been  exempted  from  the  rules,  a  hortus  inclusus  to 
which  the  methods  and  hypotheses  applicable  elsewhere 
were  held  not  to  apply.  We  desire  to  make  the  methods 
that  we  apply  to  it  strictly  homogeneous.  We  are  con- 
vinced that  life  in  New  Testament  times  was  not  conducted 
as  if  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  dark  seance.  We  are  con- 
vinced that  bodies  in  those  days  did  not  float  in  the  air  or 
materialize  and  dematerialize  at  will.  We  have  no  doubt 
in  our  own  minds  that,  of  the  two  hypotheses — that  these 
things  really  happened,  and  that  they  came  to  be  thought 
to  have  happened  on  the  basis  of  widely  prevalent  ideas — 
the  latter  is  by  far  the  more  probable.  The  belief  in  this 
enables  us  to  throw  open  the  doors  of  the  dark  chamber, 
and  to  let  in  hght  and  air. 


Ih\  Sanday  I  17 

When  Mr.  Knox,  in  his  easy-going  manner,  paraphrases 
or  parodies  our  view  of  the  Descensus  ad  Inferos  as  mean- 
ing that 

Smce  the  people  of  the  time  [of  Christ]  were  the  sort 
of  people  they  were,  that  is  just  the  sort  of  thing  they 
would  have  thought  He  did, 

he  is  saying  exactly  what  we  really  think ;  and  we  have 
practically  no  doubt  that  the  explanation  is  the  most 
probable  that  can  be  given.  And  I  am  afraid  I  must  reply 
to  another  critic  of  mine  that  it  is  not  a  tenable  view  to 
apply  this  kind  of  explanation  to  the  Descensus  and  to 
refuse  to  apply  it  to  other  clauses  of  the  Creed. 

I  know  that  it  will  seem  an  audacious,  and  even  a  pre- 
sumptuous thing  to  say,  but  I  am  almost  as  sure  as  I  am 
of  anything  that  the  view  which  I  have  just  been  pro- 
pounding can  be  permanently  maintained,  and  I  greatly 
doubt  whether  any  other  view  can. 

For  myself,  I  have  always  said  that  I  do  not  deny  the 
reality  of  miracle.  What  I  contend  for  is  that  there  are 
in  the  nature  of  things  (i.  e.  in  the  world  as  God  has  made 
it)  limitations  to  miracle  of  which  the  men  of  our  Lord's 
day  were  not  aware,  but  of  which  we  are  aware  now. 

I  must  confess  that,  since  the  War  began,  it  has  ab- 
sorbed all  my  thoughts,  and  I  am  behindhand  with  my 
theological  reading.  I  have  not  yet  read  either  Dr. 
Headlam's  book  or  Dr.  Illingworth's.  I  know  that,  when 
I  do  read  them,  it  will  be  with  all  respect.  The  writers 
are  sure  to  have  stated  with  the  greatest  ability  the  view 
opposed  to  mine.  But  I  cannot  think  that  they  are  likely 
to  lead  me  to  change  an  opinion  which  it  has  taken  me 
a  lifetime  to  form. 

XI 

I  might  stop  here.  But  I  am  tempted  to  send  out  this 
paper  with  an  Envoi  of  a  more  personal  kind.  It  has 
been  inevitable  that  I  should  take  the  line  I  have  done, 
and  at  this  time  of  day  it  is  not  likely — indeed  I  may  say 

c 


18    Form  and  Content  m  Christian  Tradition 

it  is  impossible — that  I  should  change  it.  I  know  that, 
in  consequence,  many  of  my  old  friends  look  askance  at 
me.  It  is  the  sorrow  of  my  declining  years.  It  cannot 
be  helped,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  complain.  They  think 
that  I  have  ceased  to  be  true  to  the  cause  that  I  have  had 
at  heart  ever  since  I  began  to  write.  They  are  too  kind 
and  too  gentle  to  say  this  in  words.  They  leave  that  to 
those  who  do  not  know  me. 

There  is  nothing  of  which  I  wish  to  complain.  But  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  even  my  friends  have  shown 
a  certain  slowness  of  understanding.  The  fault  is  very 
probably  mine.  The  present  is  indeed  the  first  time  that 
I  have  succeeded  (if  I  have  succeeded)  in  stating  my  more 
recent  views  as  a  connected  whole.  I  know  that  the  state- 
ment is  of  the  most  summary  kind  ;  but  they  are  words 
addressed  to  the  wise,  which  wise  men  (if  they  care  to  do 
so)  can  easily  fill  in  for  themselves.  What  I  have  said 
may  at  least  help  to  dissipate  some  of  the  ideas  that  are 
still  entertained  about  me.  Those  who  are  a  little  further 
removed  credit  me  with  a  number  of  j^resuppositions 
which  I  should  utterly  repudiate.  They  think  that  I  take 
a  mechanical  view  of  the  universe,  and  nothing  could  be 
further  from  my  mind.  But  there  are  two  things  that 
even  some  of  my  nearest  friends  seem  to  me  to  have  been 
slow  in  seeing.  They  do  not  see  that  I  myself  regard  my 
own  position  within  the  Church  of  England  as  absolutely 
loyal  and  absolutely  inexpugnable.  The  force  of  associa- 
tion is  exceedingly  strong,  and  it  is  difficult  to  place  one- 
self in  the  attitude  of  another  whose  premisses  are  different. 
I  know  that  I  am  ruiming  up  against  the  prejudices  (as 
I  must  needs  call  them,  for  they  are  not  reasoned  pro- 
cesses), not  only  of  the  Traditionalist,  but  of  the  plain  man. 
If  I  cannot  rest  in  either  of  these  two  positions,  the  reason 
is  that  both  seem  to  me  untenable.  But  I  wonder  if  this 
paper  will  succeed  in  making  my  friends  see  things  more 
as  I  do. 

And  then,  secondly,  I  do  not  think  that  they  at  all 


Dr.  Sand  ay  I  19 

appreciate  the  enormous  strength  of  the  position  I  am 
defending,  or  the  hope  it  holds  out  of  winning  thinking 
men  in  the  modern  world  to  Christ.  I  cannot  see  that 
any  of  them  have  allowed  due  weight  to  what  I  have 
called  '  the  unification  of  thought '.  The  mind  that  has 
no  vision  of  this  cannot  do  justice  to  the  mind  that  is 
guided  by  it.  If  we  can  bring  Christianity  into  a  system 
of  unified  thought,  I  do  not  see  what  should  prevent  the 
whole  world  from  becoming  Christian. 

I  must  admit  that  what  I  have  written  has  a  double 
edge  to  it.  It  is  meant,  primarily,  for  the  Churchmen's 
Union.  But  it  is  meant,  hardly  less,  for  my  own  friends 
who  do  not  go  with  me.  It  is  meant  as  an  invitation  to 
Christians  to  make  common  cause  all  round.  If  my 
position  is  really  as  sound,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
orthodox  criticism,  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  there  ought  to  be 
no  impediment  to  our  working  together.  If  I  am  not 
unorthodox — and  I  claim  distinctly  that  I  am  not  ;  I 
claim  that  I  am  only  re-interpreting  the  Creeds,  as  they 
must  inevitably  be  re-interpreted  ;  if  that  is  so,  traditional 
Churchmen  should  be  able  to  work  with  me  ;  and,  if  with 
me  (perhaps  with  some  little  adjustment  and  explanation) 
with  the  members  of  the  Churchmen's  Union  as  well. 
It  is  hardly  right  for  me  to  speak  for  them,  as  I  am  not  a 
member  of  the  body,  though  in  sympathy  with  it.  But 
I  have  little  real  doubt  that  the  Churchmen's  Union  would 
welcome  the  full  co-operation  of  traditional  Christians. 
They  would  welcome  it  for  their  own  sakes.  They  would 
be  glad  to  think  that  the  Church  of  Christ  has  a  Liberal 
wing  and  a  Conservative  wing,  and  that  each  is  necessary 
to  the  other.  They  would  rejoice  to  feel  that  the  Conser- 
vative wing  was  there,  to  state  always  the  Conservative 
side  of  each  question  as  it  came  up  as  forcibly  as  possible. 
As  Liberals,  they  would  like  to  have  some  guarantee  that 
the  other  side  did  not  go  by  default.  There  are  men  on 
the  other  side  for  whom  I  (for  one)  have  the  profoundest 
respect.     If  they  think  I  am  wrong,  I  wish  they  would 

t  C  2 


20    Form  and  Content  in  Cliristian  Tradition 

try  to  convert  me.  But,  if  they  do,  they  must  show 
a  better  understanding  of  my  premisses  than  they  have 
allowed  to  appear  hitherto.  I  would  not  ask  them  to 
change  their  own  views,  although  I  believe  them  to  be 
untenable.  But  I  would  ask  them  to  face  the  problem 
whether,  even  from  their  own  presuppositions,  we  cannot 
all  work  together.  If  they  can  answer  that  question  in 
the  affirmative,  I  see  no  reason  why  there  should  not  really 
be  one  flock  and  one  Shepherd. 


MR.  N.  P.  WILLIAMS'S  FIRST  LETTER 

My  dear  Dr.  Sand  ay, — 

I  am  venturing  to  send  you  herewith  a  few  notes 
on  your  paper  '  Continuity  of  Thought  and  Relativity  of 
Expression'.  My  excuse  for  so  doing  is  the  fact  that  in 
the  paper  you  express  the  wish  that  '  those  on  the  other 
side  '  would  try  to  '  convert '  you.  I  am  very  far  from 
claiming  competence  for  such  a  task,  which,  I  imagine, 
would  require  both  learning  and  mental  powers  no  less 
than  your  own  :  but  I  can  at  least  suggest  the  line  which 
'  the  other  side  '  would  be  inclined  to  take  as  against  some 
of  your  contentions  :  and  exchange  of  ideas  between  the 
two  '  sides  '  can  in  any  case  do  no  harm. 

I  may,  perhaps,  say  to  begin  with  that  I  do  not  propose 
to  deal  at  all  with  one  question  which  occupies  a  certain 
amount  of  space  in  your  paper — and  that  is  the  question 
of  '  loyalty '  to  the  Church  of  England.  As  things  are, 
I  have  not  the  slightest  desire  to  question  the  (subjective) 
hona  fides  of  any  one  who  feels  that  he  can  conscientiously 
belong  to  that  Church,  And,  in  any  case,  the  '  Church  of 
England  '  aspect  of  the  question  is  clearly  of  subordinate 
importance,  compared  to  the  main  issue  as  to  what  is  true. 
I  shall  therefore  endeavour  to  discuss  the  question  on 
its  merits,  without  any  reference  to  the  particular  con- 
ditions of  Anglicanism.  The  word  '  Church  '  will  occur 
occasionally  towards  the  end  of  my  remarks,  but  this  will 
always  mean  the  Church  Catholic. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness,  I  have  ventured  to  cast  these 
notes  into  something  like  the  shape  of  a  review,  which 
I  now  subjoin. 


After  some  general  remarks  on  the  philosophic  problem 
of  identity  and  change,  you  begin  by  positing  two  prin- 
ciples the  recognition  of  which  should  govern  all  study  of 
the  Christian  past,  namely,  (a)  the  continuity  of  Christian 


22    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

thought,  in  conjunction  with  the  identity  of  its  object, 
that  is,  God  revealed  in  Christ,  and  (6)  the  relativity  of  its 
expression.  I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  this  setting  out 
of  the  subject  for  debate,  and  (in  senses  which  I  hope  to 
explain  presently)  I  should  be  prepared  to  accept  both 
these  principles.  Perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  develop  the 
criticisms,  which  I  shall  venture  to  make  upon  your  pre- 
sentation of  them,  with  the  greatest  clearness,  if  I  begin 
at  once  from  the  first  point  at  which  I  find  myself  in  dis- 
agreement with  your  paper,  that  is,  your  denial  that  the 
Christian  Faith  may  rightfully  be  spoken  of  as  an  '  unal- 
terable deposit'  (p.  3). 


II 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  on  this  point  you  and  Knox 
(or  at  any  rate  you  and — shall  I  say  myself  ? )  are  rather 
at    cross-purposes.     The    reasonable    Traditionalist     (I 
should  say)  is  very  far  from   claiming  that  our  Lord 
dictated  the  Nicene  or  Athanasian  Creeds  verbally  as  they 
stand  to  the  disciples  during  the  Great  Forty  Days,  or 
that  the  precise  and  elaborate  definitions  of  the  fifth 
century  were  explicitly  present  to  the  minds  of  primitive 
Christians  in  the  first.     All  that  he  maintains  is  that 
Christianity  is  not  a  mere  mode  of  feeling,  but  includes  as 
one  of  its  constituent  elements  a  definite  body  of  ideas  : 
that  these  ideas  have  been  revealed  by  God  through  Jesus 
Christ,  not  merely  excogitated  by  man  from  his  own  inner 
consciousness  :    that  the  task  of  conserving  these  ideas 
has  been  committed  to  the  Christian  Church  ;  and  that  it 
is  not  competent  for  the  Church  to  alter,  suppress,  or 
mutilate  these  ideas  in  their  essential  nature,  inasmuch 
as  they  come  to  us  on  divine  authority  (though  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  Church  should  not  utilize  all  the  concep- 
tual instruments  employed  by  the  thought  of  each  age  as 
it  passes  in  order  to  the  better  and  clearer  formulation  of 
these  ideas).     But  all  this  (I  imagine,  though  I  refrain 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  23 

from  speaking  categorically)  does  not  go  beyond  what  you 
say ^  or  imply  in  your  remarks  on  the  first  of  your  two 
principles,  that  of  the  continuity  of  thought.  I  gather 
that  you  would  not  deny  that  a  Revelation  did  happen  in 
the  first  century  of  our  era,  and  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  body  of  Christian  ideas  which  it  is  our  duty  to  hand 
on  to  succeeding  generations  unimpaired.  Of  course,  we 
might  differ  as  to  what  ideas  really  do  belong  to  the 
essential  body  of  Christian  truth  and  what  not  :  but  that 
there  is  such  a  body  (I  imagine)  we  should  be  both  agreed. 
When  Catholic  theologians  (at  any  rate  those  of  modern 
times  and  modern  sympathies)  speak  of  the  '  deposit  of 
Faith  '  as  unalterable,  I  take  them  to  mean  unalterable 
in  its  essential  content  (as,  indeed,  it  must  be  if  it  really  is 
a  divine  message)  rather  than  in  its  verbal,  or  even  in  its 
conceptual  form.  Certainly  I  should  not  maintain  the 
'  unalterableness  '  of  the  deposit  in  any  sense  which  would 
exclude  Development  as  explained  by  Newman  in  his 
Essay  on  the  Development  of  Doctrine.  On  our  view, 
it  is  only  of  the  essential  content  that  '  unalterableness  ' 
can  be  predicated  simpliciter,  not  of  the  verbal  form  in 
which  it  is  enshrined  or  the  categories  used  to  envisage  it. 
I  do  not  deny  that  we  should  also  predicate  '  unalterable- 
ness '  in  a  sense,  and  secundum  quid,  of  the  forms — but  I 
will  discuss  that  presently. 

As  an  instance  of  such  an  '  unalterable  '  idea  I  would 
suggest  the  general  conception  of  Jesus  Christ  as  Son  of 
God,  in  a  sense  in  which  no  other  man  has  been  or  can  be, 
by  direct  Filiation  and  not  by  Adoption,  pre-existing 
eternally  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father  before  His  human 
birth.  Or;  again,  there  is  the  idea  of  the  Atonement, 
which  you  yourself  instance  on  p.  5  f.  I  am  surely  not 
wrong  in  supposing  that  you  would  regard  these  two  ideas 
as  being  elements  in  a  permanent  trust  committed  to  the 
Christian  Church,  which,  however  much  they  may  be 
explained  or  elucidated,  no  succeeding  generation  would 
be  at  liberty  to  explain  away  or  to  abolish. 


24    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

It  would  clear  the  ground,  therefore,  if  we  could  agree 
upon  the  following  propositions  : 

I.  In  the  Christian  Faith  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  we 

can  distinguish  between  form  and  essential  content. 

II.  The  essential  content  (at  least)  is  beyond  the  power 

of  man  to  alter,  whatever  may  be  said  about  the 
form  or  expression. 

But  I  need  not  labour  the  point  further,  because  you 
say  yourself  on  p.  If.:  '  There  are  the  great  truths  about 
God  and  Christ  :  there  are  the  great  broad  fundamental 
experiences  of  the  Christian  life.  These  are  pertnanent 
and  unchangeable '  (italics  mine).  This  gives  me  all 
I  want  at  this  stage  of  the  argument.  I  hope  that  I  am 
not  taking  too  optimistic  a  view  of  your  remarks  on  the 
'  continuity  of  thought ',  in  suggesting  that  the  differences 
which  separate  you  from  reasonable  TraditionaUsts  are 
on  this  precise  point  differences  of  terminology  rather 
than  of  conception  :  but  when  I  read  passages  like  that 
on  p.  10  f.  : 

Whatever  the  outside  world  may  think  of  us,  we  are 
not  disloyal  ;  we  are  not  indifferent  to  our  inheritance. 
We  too  are  anxious  that  '  all  our  days  ' — all  the  days 
of  the  Christian  Church — 

'  should  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety.' 

Those  of  us  who  are  students  seek  to  attain  this  end 
by  an  ever-deepened  study  of  the  past.  They  under- 
take that  study  in  no  cold,  detached,  dispassionate 
spirit.  They  '  think  upon  the  stones  of  Zion  '  as  rich 
with  history,  as  the  member  of  an  ancient  and  illustri- 
ous family  thinks  upon  the  stones  of  his  ancestral  home. 

Study  undertaken  in  this  spirit  cannot  be  too  sym- 
pathetic. The  mind  that  has  a  true  sense  of  continuity 
will  always  be  seeking — not  only  to  understand  the 
formulae  which  it  is  investigating,  not  only  to  enter, 
and  to  enter  fully,  into  the  grounds  on  which  they  were 
based,  but  to  steep  itself  in  the  spirit  which  lay  behind 
them  ;   it  will  be  always  trying  to  catch  something  of 


31r.  N.  P.  Williams  1  25 

the  balance  and  breadth  of  view  which  is  distinctive  of 
the  decisions  of  the  Church  Universal  and  which  marks 
them  ofE  from  the  narrower  shibboleths  of  the  sects. 

— couched  in  language  of  affecting  beauty,  which  chimes 
in  exactly  with  my  own  thoughts  and  emotions  on  these 
points,  I  am  emboldened  to  hope  that  here,  at  least,  the 
difference  is  not  one  of  vital  principle. 

Ill 

I  now  come  to  a  more  difficult  and  contentious  question, 
that  of  the  principle  of  relativity  of  expression.  For  the 
sake  of  clearness,  I  will  endeavour  to  formulate  what  I 
conceive  to  be  the  gist  of  your  argument  in  compendious 
shape,  so  as  to  be  able  to  put  my  finger  upon  the  exact 
point  where  we  begin  to  diverge.  If  I  am  not  mistaken, 
it  can  be  thrown  into  the  form  of  three  propositions  and 
a  conclusion,  viz. 

1.  At  the  beginning  of  Christianity,  its  essential  ideas 

were  much  more  vague,  fluid,  and  undefined  in 
outline  than  now. 

2.  In  the  course  of  centuries,  certain  technical  forms 

were  imposed  upon  these  originally  rather  vague 
ideas.  As  the  result  of  reflection  and  discussion, 
they  became  hardened  into  theologumena,  sharply- 
defined  concepts,  and  woven  together  into  an 
elaborate  and  interconnected  system — that  of 
ecclesiastical  and  conciliar  '  Orthodoxy '. 

3.  The  ancient  theologians,  upon  whom  was  laid  the 

task  of  fixing  and  defining  the  essential  ideas  of 

Christianity,  had  to  do  the  work  with  the  best  tools 

and  in  the  best  environment  and  atmosphere  at 

their  disposal.     But 

(a)  the    philosophical    categories    and    modes    of 

thought,  with  which  their  minds  were  furnished, 

were  peculiar  to  the  ancient  world,  and  have 

been  long  since  outgrown  by  modern  thought. 


26    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

And 
(6)  the  Fathers,  in  their  reflection  upon  the  great 
ideas  of  Christianity,  started  from  an  assumption 
which  we  now  know  to  be  erroneous,  viz.  that 
of  the  verbal  inerrancy  of  the  Scriptures, 
And 
(c)  the  ordered  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  physical 
world,  which  we  call  natural  science,  was  prac- 
tically a  sealed  book  to  them  (p.  13, 11.  1-15). 

CONCLUSION.  Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  the  ancients 
worked  with  tools  and  in  an  atmosphere  which 
would  not  be  satisfactory  to  the  modern  mind, 
their  results  must  be  expected  a  priori  to  be 
tainted  with  the  same  unsatisfactoriness.  '  It  is 
really  out  of  the  question  that  the  young  men  of 
the  present  day  should  be  expected  to  subscribe  to 
every  item  in  formulae  constructed  under  con- 
ditions such  as  these  '  (p.  13,  11.  12-15).  Conse- 
quently, the  detailed  language  of  the  Creeds  and 
Ecumenical  Definitions  may  be  said  to  be  true,  or 
to  have  been  true,  relatively  to  the  world  of  know- 
ledge in  M^hich,  and  the  thought-forms  with  which 
the  ancients  worked  :  but,  relatively  to  the  world 
of  modern  knowledge,  we  can  be  certain,  even 
before  having  examined  them,  that  they  will  prove 
to  be  inadequate,  and  pro  tanto  untrue.  Untrue, 
that  is,  or  only  relatively  true,  in  respect  of  their 
detailed  afiirmations,  or  of  some  of  them  :  though 
they  may  still  be  said  to  be  broadly  true,  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  fairly  successful  attempts, 
by  persons  who  have  considerable  claims  upon 
our  veneration,  to  formulate  true  ideas  (p.  11, 
11.  12-18). 

I  hope  that  the  above  is  not  an  unfair  summary  of  the 
argument  contained  expressly  or  by  implication  in  your 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  27 

paper.  It  will  now  be  easy  for  me  to  indicate  the  exact 
points  where  I  must  part  company  with  you. 

Before,  however,  proceeding  to  do  this,  I  should  like  to 
note  the  fact  that  this  argument  is  all  of  a  purely  a  priori 
or  deductive  nature.  You  do  not,  apparently,  approach 
the  Creeds  a  posteriori,  and  say  '  Behold,  this,  and  this, 
and  this  article  of  the  Creeds  have  been  shown  by  scientific 
observation  or  historical  research  to  be  as  a  matter  of  fact 
wrong  '  ;  you  seem  to  say  '  Things  being  what  they  are, 
the  Creeds  must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  expected  to 
be  wrong.'  I  do  not  complain  of  this  ;  the  orthodox 
theologian  is  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  object  to  the 
use  of  the  deductive  method  in  theology  ;  but  it  is  inter- 
esting to  have  it  (apparently)  admitted  that  the  Modernist 
campaign  against  the  literal  acceptation  of  the  Creeds  is 
based,  not  so  much  upon  ascertained  facts,  as  upon  con- 
siderations of  a  priori  probability. 

However,  I  must  not  delay  my  examination  of  the 
argument  itself. 

I  do  not  wish  to  challenge  Propositions  1  and  2,  which 
seem  to  me  to  correspond  to  facts. 

Nor  do  I  dispute  the  truth  of  the  statements  (6)  and  (c) 
(referring  to  the  Fathers'  belief  in  '  verbal  inspiration  ' 
and  their  ignorance  of  physical  science)  in  Proposition  3. 
But, 

A.  I  should  strenuously  deny  3  {a) — viz.  the  statement 

that  the  categories  used  by  the  Councils  in  formu- 
lating the  great  ideas  of  the  Faith  were  such  as 
have  been  outgrown  by  the  modern  world, 
And, 

B,  Even  if  Propositions  1,2,  and  3  were  all  true  as  they 

stand,   I  should  still  deny  that  the  Conclusion 
necessarily  followed  from  them. 

I  append  a  few  remarks  upon  each  of  these  positions. 


28    Form  and  Content  in  C/mstian  Tradition 

IV 

With  regard  to  Position  A.     To  say  all  that  there  is  to 
be  said  on  this  point  would  require  the  dimensions  of  an 
encyclopaedia,  and  I  must  perforce  content  myself  with 
a  few  very   summary   observations.      It   is   commonly 
asserted  by  Modernists  that  the  categories  and  concepts 
employed  by  the  Fathers  and  the  Councils  in  the  work  of 
defining  Orthodoxy  are  of  bewildering  complexity  and 
subtleness  :  that  (to  use  your  own  words  on  p.  12),  '  the 
early  Creeds  '  aimed  at  working  out  Christian  belief  with 
far  more  '  minuteness  '  than  we  should  now  dream  of  : 
that  the  acceptance  of  Catholic  Orthodoxy  involves  bind- 
ing upon  oneseK  a  vast  technical  apparatus.     I  must  beg 
leave  to  dispute  this  entirely.   The  thought-forms  of  which 
the  Creeds  and  conciliar  Definitions  make  use  seem  to  me 
to   be  quite  reasonably  few   and   simple — ova  [a,   cpvais, 
vnocTTaa-LS,  Trpoa-ooTrov,  6eXr]fia,  kvipyeia,  and  the  like.    Per- 
sonally I  do  not  see  how  the  Fathers,  or  anybody  else, 
could  have  got  on  with  less,  if  they  were  going  to  define 
anything  at  all.     Moreover,  I  should  maintain  (these  are 
summary  observations)  that  the    categories  mentioned 
above  are  not  peculiar  to  ancient  thought,  but  are  inherent 
in  the  structure  of  human  thought  as  such.     In  my 
opinion,  they  are  neither  Platonic  nor  Aristotelian,  neither 
Stoic   nor  Cynic,  but  merely  common-sense  categories. 
Has  any  modern  logician  really  produced  a  better  form  of 
thought  than  the  copula,  or  a  more  helpful  category  than 
that  of  Substance  and  Attribute  (to  which  most  of  the 
terms  used  in  the  controversies  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and 
sixth  centuries  are  really  reducible)  ?    I  know,  of  course, 
that  some  Liberal  historians  of  dogma  accuse  the  Sub- 
stance-Attribute category  of  being  '  mechanical ',  '  ma- 
terialistic',    'non-ethical',    and    '  sub -personal '  ;    but, 
again,  I  must  say  that  these  adjectives  seem  to  me  to  be 
mere  question-begging  epithets,  and  to  be  entirely  desti- 
tute of  any  logical  weight.     I  am  just  as  entitled  to  call  it 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  29 

*  supra-personal  '  in  order  to  extol  it,  as  the  Liberal  has 
to  call  it  '  sub-personal '  in  order  to  depreciate  it,  I  dare 
say  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  disciple  of  Bergson  or 
Bradley  the  category  of  Substance  has  not  much  to  be  said 
for  it — no  more,  from  these  same  view-points,  has  the 
idea  of  a  personal  God  :  yet  you  at  least  would  hardly 
describe  the  idea  of  a  personal  God  as  a  worn-out  category 
peculiar  to  ancient  thought.  To  sum  up,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  forms  of  thought  employed  in  the  Creeds  and 
Definitions,  although  abstruse,  as  the  height  of  the  sub- 
ject demands,  are  yet  simple,  clear,  and  such  as  will 
remain  valid  for  the  normal  human  mind  until  the  end  of 
time.  I  have  never  found  any  difficulty  in  explaining 
the  Chalcedonian  doctrine  of  our  Lord's  Two  Natures  to 
pupils  or  simple-minded  parishioners.  I  will  admit  that 
if  the  Fathers  had  embodied  in  the  structure  of  the  Creeds 
such  conceptions  as  Plato's  Idea  of  the  Good  or  Aristotle's 
TTp5)Tov  KLvovv  oLKivqTov  thc  rcproach  of  containing  out- 
worn forms  of  thought  might  justly  have  been  brought 
against  those  formularies  :  but  they  didn't  :  and  the  fact 
that  they  didn't,  when  they  might  easily  have  done  so, 
contains  to  my  mind  the  strongest  suggestion  that  their 
reflections  and  decisions  were  controlled  and  guided  by 
the  heavenly  assistance  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


V 

With  regard  to  Position  B  (the  non-cogency  of  the  Con- 
clusion), the  whole  argument,  as  I  have  ventured  to  for- 
mulate it,  seems  to  be  substantially  identical  with  what 
you  call  the  '  argument  from  the  difference  of  times '  in 
your  pamphlet  Bishop  Gore's  Challenge  to  Criticism :  and 
(if  I  remember  rightly — I  am  quoting  from  memory) 
you  observed  {in  loc),  '  Creeds  constructed  by  ancient 
thinkers  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  things,  correspond  to 
the  modern  mind  and  its  requirements.'  (I  fear  that  I 
have  not  got  the  words  right,  but  it  was  something  hke 


30    Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

that.)  I  must  confess  that  when  I  read  these  words 
I  mentally  pronounced  the  '  argument  from  the  difference 
of  times  '  to  be  a  pure  non  sequitur.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
you  might  as  well  say,  Because  the  men  of  the  fifth 
century  believed  twice  two  to  be  four,  the  modern  mind 
must  necessarily  take  it  to  be  five  ;  or  that  you  would  be 
equally  justified  in  pronouncing  the  Law  of  Gravitation 
to  be  inexact  or  unsatisfactory  because  Newton  knew 
nothing  of  motor-cars  or  post-impressionism.  Perhaps 
it  is  unfair  to  comment  in  this  way  on  an  argument 
expressed  so  summarily.  But,  even  as  set  out  in  more 
detailed  shape  in  your  paper,  it  seems  to  me  to  fall  con- 
siderably short  of  formal  cogency^ — and  that  for  the  follow- 
ing reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  it  leaves  out  of  count  the  fact  that  it  is 
possible  to  arrive  at  true  conclusions  from  false,  or  partially 
false  premisses. 

It  is  doubtless  true,  as  I  have  admitted  above,  that 
most  of  the  ancients  (not  all  :  Clement  and  Origen  and 
their  school,  if  I  mistake  not,  are  exceptions)  believed 
in  the  verbal  inerrancy  of  the  Bible :  but  that  does  not 
prove  that  their  speculations,  though  based  upon  errone- 
ous premisses,  were  not  overruled  by  Divine  Providence 
so  as  to  result  in  true  conclusions.  (This  is  of  course  what 
the  reasonable  Traditionalist  would  say  happened  in  the 
case  of  St.  Athanasius  and  Proverbs  viii.) 

Moreover,  I  cannot  admit  that  the  ignorance  of  the 
ancients  in  the  sphere  of  physical  science  necessarily 
discounts  the  conclusions  at  which  the  Catholic  Church 
arrived  in  the  sphere  of  religious  ideas.  Even  if  we 
regard  the  Creeds  and  conciliar  Definitions  as  merely  the 
products  of  unassisted  human  brains,  we  have  no  right 
to  assume  that  ignorance  or  error  in  one  department  of 
knowledge  necessarily  involves  error  in  all  other  depart- 
ments. This  holds  good  within  the  sphere  of  natural 
science  itself  :  there  have  been  many  pioneers  in  one 
branch,  who  have  been  privileged  to  throw  Hght  upon 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  31 

many  dark  corners  of  the  universe,  but  yet  have  held 
totally  erroneous  and  fantastic  views  in  regard  to  other 
branches  of  knowledge.  And  I  should  also  distinguish 
sharply,  for  these  purposes,  between  dogmatic  theology^ 
on  the  one  side,  dealing  with  the  contents  of  the  specific 
Christian  revelation,  and  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  on 
the  other,  containing  the  speculations  of  unassisted  human 
reason  on  the  data  of  the  religious  consciousness  in  general. 
I  dare  say  that  the  modern  theologian,  in  so  far  as  he  has 
access  to  the  vast  treasuries  of  observations  and  generaliza- 
tions accumulated  by  modern  Natural  Science,  is  infi- 
nitely better  equipped  for  conducting  the  inquiries  proper 
to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  than  were  the  ancients  : 
but  I  should  strongly  dispute  the  suggestion  that  he  is 
in  a  better  position  than  they  were  for  formulating  the 
essential  contents  of  the  Christian  deposit.  If  one  is 
discussing  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity  or  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, it  seems  to  me  that  it  does  not  much  matter  whether 
the  universe  is  thought  to  be  heliocentric  or  geocentric. 
If  it  be  admitted  that  God  created  heaven  and  earth,  it 
matters  little  whether  the  distance  between  the  earth  and 
the  stars  be  reckoned  in  hundreds  or  in  trillions  of  miles. 
I  wish  to  speak  with  perfect  openness,  and  therefore,  at 
the  risk  of  somewhat  weakening  my  argument  on  this 
point,  I  will  admit  that  there  is  one  area  in  which  the 
spheres  of  dogma  and  of  natural  science  do  seem  to 
overlap,  and  in  which  erroneous  conceptions  of  scientific 
fact  might  vitiate  and  disturb  trains  of  theological  reason- 
ing :  and  that  is  the  subject  of  the  Fall  and  of  Original 
Sin.  A  priori,  I  will  concede  that  the  Fathers  (and,  of 
course,  the  New  Testament  writers  no  less)  might  well 
have  been  seriously  handicapped  by  their  ignorance  of 
anthropology  and  biology  in  thinking  out  and  clearing 
up  these  presuppositions  of  Christian  soteriology.  But, 
even  in  this  particular  area,  it  seems  to  me  that  you  are 
not  entitled  to  claim  more  than  a  general  a  priori  pro- 
bability {not  mathematical  certainty)  for  the  supposition 


32    Form  and  Content  in  Chnstian  Tradition 

that  the  early  Church  went  totally  or  partially  wrong  : 
you  must  always  leave  open  the  possibility  that  it  may 
have  come  to  true  conclusions  from  erroneous  premisses.^ 
'  Yes,'  you  may  reply,  '  but  that  is  all  that  is  claimed — 
the  general  a  priori  probability  that  the  conclusions  of  the 
early  Church  were  to  a  certain  extent  vitiated  by  the 
erroneous  character  of  some  of  its  premisses.  If  we  know 
that  a  thinker  has  started  from  false  premisses,  it  is  surely 
probable,  even  though  it  may  not  be  rigorously  certain, 
that  his  conclusions  are  at  least  unreliable.'  I  might 
object  that  certain  phrases  and  turns  of  expression  ('  It  is 
really  out  of  the  question  .  .  .'  and  so  on)  appear  to 
claim  much  more  than  general  probability,  little  less  in 
fact  than  dogmatic  certainty,  for  your  conclusions.  But 
let  that  pass,  I  think  that  I  should  not  be  inclined  to 
challenge  the  last  remark  which  I  have  ventured  hypothe- 
tically  to  attribute  to  you — viz.  the  proposition  that  the 
Creeds  and  Ecumenical  Definitions  are  'probably  inaccurate 
or  unsatisfactory — but  for  one  great  assumption,  which 
I  have  kept  in  the  background  until  now,  but  which 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  master-key  to  the  whole  contro- 
versy. 

VI 

This  great  assumption  is  the  belief  in  the  immanent 
personal  presence  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  working  in  and  through  the  processes  of  its  life, 
overruling  the  turbulence  and  ambition  of  its  leaders, 
sifting  out  the  categories  which  are  of  permanent  value 
and  belong  to  the  essential  structure  of  human  thought, 
from  the  detritus  of  merely  temporary  and  local  thought- 
forms,  and  inspiring  the  whole  nexus  oi  dogmatic  develop- 
ment so  intimately  and  pervasively  that  each  doctrine, 
as  it  took  shape,  assumed  precisely  that  form  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  foresaw  would  most  perfectly  preserve  the 
essential  content  till  the  end  of  time.  I  would  suggest 
1  Which,  again,  is  what  I  believe  happened. 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  33 

that,  for  those  who  are  able  to  make  this  assumption,  the 
'  argument  from  the  assistance  of  the  Holy  Spirit '  more 
than  cancels  any  slight  weight  which  I  have  allowed  to 
the  '  argument  from  the  difiference  of  times '.  Of  com*se, 
all  language  about  Grod  and  divine  things  is  relative  to 
human  conditions  of  thought :  but  the  point  is,  that  if  we 
can  make  this  assumption  of  a  Real  Presence  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  Church,  we  shall  be  able  to  feel  confidence  that  the 
terms  which  the  Councils,  under  His  inspiration,  adopted, 
are,  although  relative,  relative  to  human  thought  uber- 
haupt — not  to  any  one  temporary  or  local  phase  of  it  : 
in  other  words,  that  they  not  merely  were  the  best  terms 
for  the  Graeco-Roman  world  of  the  fifth  century,  but  that 
they  are  the  best  terms  which  are  ever  likely  to  be  hit  upon 
by  human  beings. 

It  will  now  be  clear  in  what  sense  I  should  speak  of  the 
verbal  and  conceptual  forms,  in  which  the  authority  of 
the  Church  has  enshrined  the  essential  ideas  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  'unalterable'.  I  do  not  assert  that  they  are 
'  unalterable  '  in  the  sense  of  having  always  been  there  : 
but  I  should  say  that,  now  that  they  are  there,  they  are 
unalterable  for  the  future.  This  '  unalterability  '  has,  on 
our  view,  two  consequences.  It  means,  first,  that  it  is 
not  permissible  to  substitute  other  intellectual  forms  (the 
verbal  expression  is  after  all  a  secondary  matter)  for  those 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  once  sanctioned,  speaking 
through  His  organ,  the  Church  Universal  :  and  it  means, 
secondly,  that  it  is  not  permissible  to  discard  these  forms 
in  favour  of  a  mere  formless  vagueness — to  reject  the  clear 
and  precise  apprehension  of  truth  which  God  has  given 
us  through  His  Spirit  in  the  Church,  and  to  relapse  into 
the  original  indefiniteness  on  the  plea  of  returning  more 
nearly  to  the  conditions  of  early  Christianity  or  the  inten- 
tions of  its  Founder.  These  consequences  may  not  be 
welcome  to  the  modern  mind,  but  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  they  follow  irresistibly  from  the  assumption  of  that 
peculiarly  intense  and  vital  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the 

D 


34     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

Church  which  I  have  tried  to  describe  above.  I  am 
afraid  that  you  may  still  pronounce  the  idea  of  a  set  of 
unalterable  forms,  even  understood  in  this  sense,  to  be 
a  'priori  impossible  ('  contrary  to  the  nature  and  necessity 
of  things  ')  ;  but  I  would,  with  all  respect,  ask  you  to 
consider  whether  the  law  of  universal  flux,  which  you 
appear  to  postulate,  applies  to  such  things  as  the  multi- 
plication table,  the  laws  of  thought,  or  the  axioms  of 
geometry :  and,  if  it  does,  whether  we  are  not  landed  in 
the  morass  of  subjectivism  and  solipsism,  in  which  the 
terms  '  truth  '  and  '  fact '  become  finally  evacuated  of  all 
meaning. 

The  idea  that  dogmatic  forms  cannot  be  unalterable 
because  they  are  the  products  of  a  gradual  evolution  is  so 
common  that  I  will  venture  to  trespass  on  your  patience 
a  little  further  in  connexion  with  this  particular  point. 
Take  such  an  instance  of  a  dogmatic  form  as  the  Homo- 
ousion.     I  do  not  dream  for  a  moment  that  the  primitive 
Church,  as  it  stood  on  the  morrow  of  Pentecost,  used  this 
conception   for   describing   our   Lord's   relation   to   the 
Father  :   in  fact,  I  do  not  suppose  that  it  expended  over 
much  thought  on  the  exact  metaphysical  rationale  of  that 
relation  at  all.     But  it  does  seem  to  me  that  it  held,  in 
what  we  should  call  pictorial  and  imaginative  form,  the 
very  same  general  idea  of  the  Divine  Sonship  of  Christ 
which  was  formulated  three  hundred  years  later  by  the 
Nicene  Fathers  in  the  more  precise,  abstruse,  and  intel- 
lectual terms  of  the  Homoousion  formula.     One  does  not 
of  course  blame  them  for  not  consciously  holding  the 
precise  conceptual  form  which  was  destined  to  emerge 
three  centuries  later,  any  more  than  one  blames  TertuUian 
for  denying  the  Eternal  Generation  of  the  Son  before  the 
Church  had  finally  settled  that  this  idea  was  a  necessary 
implicate  of  the  belief  in  His  full  Divinity.     But,  if  one 
believes  in  the  Spirit  as  governing  the  whole  growth  of 
historic  Christianity,  in  its  three-fold  structure,  dogmatic, 
institutional,  and  devotional,  it  follows  that  the  process 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  35 

of  dogmatic  development  is  irreversible  ;  its  dii'ection 
is  ever  forwards  and  not  backwards,  it  must  necessarily 
be  wrong  and  unnatural  to  go  behind  what  has  once  been 
fixed  by  divinely  inspired  authority — to  attempt  to  put 
the  hands  of  the  clock  back  by  a  return  to  the  simpler 
and  vaguer  faith  of  the  Church's  infancy,  however  attrac- 
tive such  a  proposal  may  appear  at  first  sight.  In  this 
sense,  it  is  a  duty  to  be  sophisticated.  I  cannot  deny 
myself  the  (somewhat  malicious)  satisfaction  of  observing 
that  from  this  point  of  view  Modernism,  at  any  rate  Con- 
tinental Modernism,  with  its  cry  of  '  Zuriick  zu  Christus  ' 
(in  the  sense  in  which  these  words  are  commonly  used, 
that  is,  as  meaning  '  Los  von  der  Kirche,  los  von  Paulus  ') 
would  naturally  appear  to  merit  the  name  of  '  reaction  ' 
in  its  most  literal  application. 

I  should,  on  this  ground,  challenge  the  appropriateness 
of  your  metaphor  of  the  snake  and  its  old  and  new  skins 
(p.  10).  The  Traditionalist  would  regard  the  dogmas 
of  the  Faith,  not  as  a  superficial  and  periodically  changing 
integument,  but  as  the  connected  system  of  vital  organs 
into  which  the  originally  simple  substance  of  the  embryo 
has  differentiated  itself.  In  the  first  stages  of  its  existence 
the  embryo  is  apparently  a  mere  speck  of  protoplasm, 
within  which  no  organs  can  be  detected,  practically 
homogeneous  throughout  ;  but  yet,  even  at  that  stage,  it 
contains  the  potentiality  of  brain,  spinal  cord,  heart,  and 
lungs,  which  appear  in  the  course  of  time,  gradually 
assuming  definiteness  and  consistency,  as  the  working  out 
of  a  divine  idea  which  was  always  immanent  in  the  germ. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  we  can  now  dispense  with 
lungs  because  they  took  some  time  to  develop  :  and  an 
attempt  to  return  to  primitive  conditions  by  a  radical 
simplification  of  our  internal  economy  would  probably 
prove  a  peculiarly  disastrous  experiment  in  anatomical 
revision. 

Of  course,  the  fact  that  the  outlines  and  mutual  rela- 
tions of  the  various  organs  are  potentially  fixed  from  the 

D  2 


36     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

first,  and  actually  fixed  after  a  comparatively  short  period 
of  the  body's  existence,  does  not  condemn  it  to  petrifac- 
tion or  stagnation,  or  exclude  the  possibility  of  growth 
and  development — on  the  lines  laid  down  by  Nature.  No 
more  does  the  immutability  of  the  conceptual  forms  once 
sanctioned  by  conciliar  authority  exclude  the  possibility 
of  a  progression,  to  which  no  term  need  or  can  be  set,  in 
the  increasing  apprehension  of  the  full  meaning  of  their 
content.  If  the  world  lasts  so  long,  future  ages  may  well 
see  more  Ecumenical  Councils,  fresh  Creeds  and  Defini- 
tions (I  mean,  of  course,  additional  to,  not  contradictory 
of,  the  old),  and  technical  theological  forms  imposed  upon 
such  Christian  ideas  as  are  still  in  the  undefined  and  fluid 
stage,  such  as  that  of  the  Atonement,  or  of  the  Inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures. 

VII 

I  gather  from  some  words  on  p.  13  of  your  paper  that 
you  would  not  altogether  repudiate  that  conception  of 
the  immanent  Divine  Spirit  guiding  the  development  of 
Catholic  doctrine  which  I  have  endeavoured  (very  imper- 
fectly and  cursorily)  to  set  out  above.  These  words  are 
'  .  .  .  (Our  young  men)  ^  are  perfectly  ready  to  believe 
that  the  good  Providence  of  God  presided  over  the  whole 
evolution.'  I  welcome  this  observation,  because  I  want 
to  find  points  of  agreement  rather  than  of  difference 
between  us.  And  on  this  point  it  would  appear  that  the 
difference  between  the  views  which  we  severally  take  of 
the  Divine  guidance  of  dogmatic  evolution  is  one  of  degree 
rather  than  of  kind.  I  believe  that  the  informing  energies 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  penetrated  the  whole  process,  as  the 
nerve-force  of  the  body  is  present  in  all  its  functions,  so 

1  I  am  sure  you  will  forgive  my  entering  a  respectful  but  firm  protest 
against  the  apparent  assumption  that  all  '  young  men '  as  such  are 
Modernists.  I  have  had,  and  still  have  a  large  undergraduate  acquaint- 
ance, which  has  included  many  Agnostics,  but  only  three  Modernists, 
of  whom  one  has  since  become  what  I  should  call  orthodox. 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  37 

as  to  work  out,  in  the  Catholic  doctrines,  the  nearest 
approximation  to  absolute  truth  that  the  human  mind  is 
capable  of  receiving  :  you,  I  gather,  would  conceive  this 
governing  and  directing  activity  in  a  much  vaguer  and 
more  attenuated  sort  of  way,  as  keeping  Christian  doc- 
trine, in  a  general  sense,  more  or  less  on  the  right  lines, 
but  by  no  means  safeguarding  it  against  considerable 
errors  in  detail.  But,  if  the  difference  is  only  one  of 
degree,  the  gulf  between  the  two  positions  ought  not  to 
be  unbridgeable. 

To  sum  up.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  situation  as 
between  the  view  represented  in  your  paper  and  that 
which  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  out  might  be  roughly 
sketched  as  follows  : 

A.  The  existence  of  a  permanent  body  of  Christian 

truth. 

Admitted  by  both  sides} 

B.  The  relativity  of  the  forms  in  which  this  permanent 

body    was   expressed   by    the   early    Creeds   and 
Councils, 

I  admit  this  in  some  measure,  but  to  nothing 
like  the  extent  which  you  desire. 

C.  The  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  governing  the 

process  whereby  the  permanent  body  of  Christian 
ideas  was  expressed  in  credal  forms. 

You   admit   this   in   some  measure,   but  to 
nothing  like  the  extent  which  I  desire. 

Can  the  differences  on  points  B  and  C  be  terminated, 
and  if  so,  how  ?  I  believe  that  my  position  on  point  B — 
viz.  that  the  categories  and  forms  in  which  the  early 
Church  embodied  the  deposit  of  Christian  truth  are,  as 
a  matter  of  mere  fact,  such  as  are  inherent  in  the  structure 
of  human  thought  and  the  common  property  of  all  ages 
and  countries  ;  and  that,  so  far  as  they  are  relative,  they 

^  I  hope  and  believe  that  I  am  not  unduly  optimistic  in  setting  this 
down. 


38     Form  and  Content  in  Chistian  Tradition 

are  relative  to  human  thought  as  such  and  not  to  any 
particular  philosophical  system — I  believe  that  this  posi- 
tion can  be  amply  defended  by  the  ordinary  weapons  of 
debate.  But  I  should  admit  that  my  view  on  point  C — 
the  belief  in  the  Holy  Spirit  as  guiding  the  process  of 
dogmatic  evolution  specifically  and  in  detail,  not  vaguely 
and  in  a  general  sense — rests  upon  an  intuition.  This 
intuition,  whereby  the  Holy  Ghost  is  seen  to  be  in  the 
Church,  is  (I  should  say)  analogous  to  that  sense  of  God 
in  nature  which  comes  fleetingly  at  times  to  all,  and  is 
possessed  in  fullest  measure  by  the  favoured  few,  poets, 
prophets,  and  mystics.  There  is  a  certain  sense  of  the 
augustness,  the  sanctity,  one  might  almost  say  the  wor- 
shipfulness,  of  the  Church,  which  appears  in  the  vision  of 
the  Ecclesia  in  Hermas,  or  in  such  a  phrase  as  that  which 
occurs  in  the  old  Leonine  collect  '  Ecclesiae  tuae  mirabile 
sacramentum '.  He  who  has  this  sense  of  the  sacramental 
character  of  the  Church — who  can  see  in  the  historic 
Society  the  sacrament,  or  vehicle,  or  efficacious  sign,  of 
the  presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost — will  not  be  likely  to  have 
much  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  majestic  cadences  of  the 
Creeds  as  the  voice  of  God.  The  sins,  ignorances,  and 
imperfections  of  the  Councils  which  actually  drew  up  the 
Creeds  and  Definitions  will  be  as  irrelevant  to  him  as  the 
dust  which  might  settle  on  the  bread  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
would  be  to  the  devout  communicant.  The  Reformation 
in  Northern  Europe  may  have  had  some  excellent  results  : 
but  (on  my  view)  one  of  its  most  unfortunate  results  was 
the  complete  or  partial  destruction  of  this  sense  of  the 
Church  as  the  time-garment  of  the  Christ-Spirit,  the 
mystical  Body  in  which  the  Lord  still  lives,  heals,  and 
suffers,  as  truly  now  in  Paris,  Moscow,  or  New  York  as 
once  in  Galilee  or  on  Calvary.  There  are  not  wanting 
signs  that  this  sense  is  slowly  reviving  in  England,  and 
perhaps  in  Anglo-Saxon  Christendom  generally  ;  but  its 
re-creation,  as  the  necessary  basis  for  the  re-union  of  all 
who  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity,  will  be  finally 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  I  39 

effected  by  instruments  and  means  belonging  to  an  order 
other  than  the  purely  intellectual. 

There  are  many  points  of  detail  in  your  paper,  upon 
which  I  could  say  a  great  deal,  if  I  had  time  and  space. 
The  '  unification  of  thought  '  is  doubtless  a  splendid  ideal : 
but  I  do  not  see  how  reUgious  and  secular  thought  are  to 
be  fused  until  secular  thought  itself  shows  some  tendency 
towards  its  own  inner  unification,  and  ceases  to  be  a 
jarring  chaos  of  incompatible  systems.  Otherwise,  with 
what  are  you  going  to  unify  Christianity  ?  With  Berg- 
sonism  ?  or  neo-Hegelianism  ?  or  Spencerism  ?  or  Prag- 
matism ?  or  Pan-pneumatism  ?  But,  though  much  has 
necessarily  been  omitted,  I  have  set  down,  I  think,  my 
reflections  on  the  most  important  questions  raised  by 
your  paper  :  and  I  trust  that  the  length  of  this  note  has 
not  unduly  tried  your  patience. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

N.  P.  Williams. 


DR.  SANDAY'S  REPLY 

My  dear  Williams, 

I  acknowledge  warmly  the  perfect  courtesy  and 
considerateness  of  your  letter.  I  also  very  much  appre- 
ciate its  great  clearness  and  precision  of  statement. 
These  are  qualities  that  should  enable  us  to  reach  a  better 
understanding.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  should 
entirely  agree  ;  but  it  will  be  much  if  we  can  reduce  the 
limits  between  which  we  seem  to  disagree.  And  for  this 
purpose  your  letter,  if  I  may  say  so,  seems  likely  to  be 
very  helpful. 

I  will  take  your  points  in  the  order  in  which  they  arise, 
and  will  add  some  further  comments  of  my  own  at  the  end. 


I  am  glad  that  we  can  come  to  terms  upon  the  broad 
principle  of  '  continuity  and  relativity  '  ;  and  I  am  also 
glad  that,  when  you  speak  of  the  '  unalterableness  '  of  the 
Christian  Faith,  you  confine  this  to  the  essential  content^ 
as  distinct  from  the  form  or  expression.  I  may  perhaps 
be  allowed  to  remind  you  of  this  later,  if  the  occasion 
should  arise,  as  it  possibly  may. 

II 

It  is  only  when  we  come  to  the  question  of  '  relativity  ' 
that  you  begin  to  be  conscious  of  divergence.  And  I  may 
say  here  at  once  that,  apart  from  some  small  details  which 
would  rather  overstate  my  views,  I  can  quite  accept  the 
compendious  paraphrase  into  which  you  throw  them. 
Here  again  I  note  the  considerable  measure  of  agreement. 
This  covers  the  propositions  which  you  have  numbered 


Dr.  Sanday  II  41 

1,  2,  3b,c.  The  points  that  you  would  'strenuously 
deny  '  are  3  a  and  the  sequitur  between  the  three  proposi- 
tions and  the  conclusion. 

I  will  come  to  these  in  a  moment  ;  but,  before  I  do  so, 
I  ought  just  to  touch  upon  the  points  in  your  statement 
which  rather  exaggerate  me. 

The  form  of  modernism  which  I  desire  to  defend  is 
distinctly  a  conservative  and  (if  I  may  call  it  so),  reverent 
modernism.  For  my  own  part  I  dislike  and  deprecate 
the  language  into  which  some  modernists  are  apt  to  fall 
that  would  dismiss  impatiently  the  older  forms  of  state- 
ment as  '  out  of  date  '  and  untenable.  I  would  carefully 
abstain  from  using  several  of  the  expressions  which  3^ou 
(not  unnaturally)  attribute  to  me.  Such  would  be  the 
phrases,  '  inadequate  and  jpro  tanto  untrue  ',  '  the  Creeds 
must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  expected  to  be  wrong  ', 
'  the  great  ideas  of  the  Faith  were  such  as  have  been 
outgrown  by  the  modern  world  '.  '  Untrue  '  (even  with 
the  qualification  '  pro  tanto  untrue  '), '  wrong  ', '  outgrown  ' 
(in  the  sense  of  discarded),  are  all  words  that  I  should 
avoid.^  The  attitude  of  mind  to  which  they  correspond  is 
not  mine  ;  and,  even  if  it  were,  they  would  not  be  appro- 
priate to  the  special  purpose  with  which  I  am  writing. 
I  shall  have  later  to  try  to  explain  this  more  fully,  and 
will  say  no  more  about  it  at  present. 

What  you  say  about  '  a  priori  '  and  '  a  posteriori  ' 
objections,  also  needs  a  word  of  comment.  I  do  not  feel 
myself  tied  down  to  one  mode  of  reasoning  rather  than 
another  ;  each  has  its  place  according  to  the  context  in 
which  it  is  used.  The  tendency  of  your  own  paper  is 
perhaps  rather  to  lay  stress  upon  the  a  priori  side  of  things. 
But  this  is  another  aspect  of  our  discussion  that  will 
come  up  again  presently,  and  I  will  not  dilate  upon 
it  now. 

1  For  a  fuller  exposition  of  my  views  on  this  head,  I  may  perhaps  be 
allowed  to  refer  to  an  article  entitled  '  Relative  Truth  '  in  The  Modem 
Churchman  for  October-November  1915. 


42     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

III 

I  note  your  remarks  under  your  third  head.  They  are 
fresh  and  pointed  and  deserve  full  consideration.  At  the 
same  time,  I  do  not  feel  that  they  are  inconsistent  with 
the  attitude  that  I  should  myself  wish  to  adopt  in  regard 
to  the  Creeds.  I  might  describe  that  attitude  in  general 
terms  by  saying  that,  where  we  propound  to  ourselves  the 
same  questions  that  are  raised  by  the  Creeds,  especially 
so  far  as  these  questions  relate  to  the  metaphysical  nature 
of  the  Godhead,  my  own  belief  is  that  they  are  rightly 
answered  in  the  words  of  the  Creeds.  The  difference  in 
regard  to  modern  times,  as  I  should  put  it,  is,  not  that  we 
should  answer  the  same  questions  differently,  but  that 
we  should  be  inchned  to  put  rather  different  questions. 
These  are  not  for  us  the  urgent  questions  that 

rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul, 

whether  we  will  or  no.  We  do  not  challenge  the  old 
answers  ;  we  assent  to  them — only  perhaps  a  little  less 
energetically  inasmuch  as  they  are  less  pressing  and  less 
the  subject  of  active  controversy. 

It  may  help  the  process  of  clearing  up  obscurities,  if 
I  take  an  important  example — the  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Trinity.  If  I  ask  how  I  can  best  make  real  to  myself  this 
doctrine,  I  am  inclined  to  reply  that  I  can  do  so  to  the 
best  advantage  by  a  study  of  its  history,  by  observing  how 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  gradually  took  shape  in  the  thought 
of  the  Early  Church.  The  first  impulse  to  the  doctrine 
was  doubtless  given  by  the  necessity  of  distinguishing 
between  the  Godhead  in  the  heavens  and  the  Godhead 
upon  earth.  This  gave  rise  to  the  bracketing  together  of 
God  the  Father  and  Grod  the  Son,  as  in  the  salutations  and 
elsewhere  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  Then  gradually  there 
steals  in  the  use  of  the  triple  formula  (as  in  2  Cor.  xiii.  14, 
1  Peter  i.  2).  We  enter  into  the  psychology  of  the 
Apostolic  writers,  and  try  to  follow  the  working  of  their 
minds.     Then,  in  like  manner,  when  the  Church  begins  to 


D7\  Sanday  II  43 

reflect  and  philosophize  upon  its  beliefs,  we  take  up  a 
treatise  like  that  of  Tertullian  '  Against  Praxeas  ',  and  we 
are  not  surprised  to  find  that  the  most  prominent  idea  is 
that  of  what  is  called  '  the  economic  Trinity  ',  the  suc- 
cessive '  dispensations  '  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit.  We  see  how  the  Church  was  thus  led  on  to  ask  if 
these  distinctive  operations  did  not  point  to  some  ulterior 
distinction  of  being,  and  to  answer  that  presumably  they 
did.  We  are  conscious  that  to  this  day  we  can  give  no 
better  answer  ;  though  we  hasten  to  add  that,  if  we  ven- 
ture as  far  as  this,  we  do  so  entirely  in  the  spirit  of  the 
most  profound  of  the  ancient  theologians,  more  particu- 
larly St.  Augustine  :  cum  quaeritur,  quid  tres,  magna 
prorsus  inopia  humanum  laborat  eloquium ;  dictum  est 
tamen  '  tres  personae  ',  non  ut  illud  dicer etur,  sed  ne  taceretur 
{De  Trin.  v.  9). 

The  modern  Christian  feels  that  he  can  follow  the  steps 
in  this  process  with  the  deepest  respect  ;  he  can  adopt  the 
ancient  language,  and  he  is  ready  to  fall  back  upon  it  as 
the  best  that  is  available  for  him.  But  his  instinct  is  all 
for  reticence,  and  he  is  glad  to  think  that  the  pressure  for 
definition  from  without  is  less  than  it  has  been.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is  just  as  urgent  as  ever  it  was. 
The  question.  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  still  demands 
a  prompt,  clear,  and  decisive  answer.  But  the  further 
corollaries  from  this  doctrine  are  not  so  urgent.  The 
drift  of  thought  is  rather  away  from  them,  and  tends  to 
concentrate  itself  more  upon  religious  experience  and 
practice.  Hence  I  do  not  think  it  is  too  much  to  say  that 
the  speculative  discussions  of  the  past  are  more  in  the 
background  of  men's  minds  than  in  the  front  of  them. 

IV 

The  truths  of  mathematics  stand  apart  by  themselves. 
The  whole  system  of  mathematics  is  from  first  to  last 
a  creation  of  the  human  mind.  And  what  the  mind 
makes,  the  mind  is  thoroughly  competent  to  handle.     The 


44     Form  aiid  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

subject-matter  is  both  finite  and  definite.  All  that  is  to 
be  seen  of  it,  the  mind  can  see  ;  it  can  grasp  it,  above, 
beneath,  and  around.  There  is  no  analogy  from  such 
comprehension  as  this  to  the  attitude  of  the  soul  towards 
its  God,  feeling  after  Him  if  haply  it  may  find  Him. 
There  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  truths  that 
are  within  the  compass  of  the  mind  and  truths  that  by  the 
nature  of  the  case  are  beyond  it.  The  study  of  a  finite 
object  is  one  thing,  and  the  study  of  an  infinite  object  is 
another.  When  all  is  said,  the  mind  can  only  resign 
itself  to  its  limitations. 

I  am  afraid  it  is  a  highly  paradoxical  and  precarious 
position  to  take  up,  '  that  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  true 
conclusions  from  false,  or  partially  false  premisses '. 
I  allow  that  in  appearance  such  failures  of  the  mental 
processes  do  sometimes  happen.  I  allow  that  the  working 
of  the  logical  machine  is  not  infallible — that  it  is  not  safe 
to  assume  that  even  from  sound  premisses  the  conclusions 
that  seem  to  follow  will  always  be  sound,  and  that  truth 
is  sometimes  arrived  at  by  processes  which  seem  to  be 
faulty.  I  allow  that  on  these  grounds  a  certain  amount 
of  reserve  and  caution  has  to  be  exercised  in  the  conduct 
of  life.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  erect  such  excep- 
tional cases  into  a  law,  and  to  act  as  though  the  opposite 
assumption  held  good. 

The  rationale  of  these  paradoxical  instances  appears  to 
be  that  all  reasoning  is  not  conscious  ;  that  the  sub-  and 
un-conscious  processes  embrace  a  wider  range  of  data 
than  the  conscious,  and  are  thus  sometimes  able  to  correct 
the  more  intense  activities  of  conscious  reasoning.  The 
seemingly  imperfect  connexion  between  premisses  and 
conclusion  is  often  simply  due  to  defective  analysis. 

In  any  case  the  fact  remains  that  right  processes  are  the 
best,  if  not  the  only,  guarantee  we  have  for  right  results. 
To  revise  and  check  our  processes  is  the  best  way  of  arriv- 
ing at  truth.  This  is  the  normal  method,  and  any  other 
is  abnormal. 


Dr.  Sanday  II  45 

We  have  the  further  encouragement  of  knowing  that, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  processes  of  reasoning  have  steadily 
been  improved.  In  all  branches  of  research  advance  has 
been  made.  The  world  knows  better  than  it  did  what 
kinds  of  inference  are  to  be  trusted  and  what  are  not. 
And  this  not  only  imposes  on  us  the  duty  of  going  over 
afresh  the  old  lines  of  proof,  but  it  also  inspires  us  with 
growing  confidence  in  following  out  those  trains  of  reason- 
ing which  experience  has  ratified. 


I  understand  that,  where  rational  verification  fails,  you 
fall  back  on  the  assumption  of  a  Divine  presence  and 
influence — in  your  own  words,  '  the  immanent  personal 
presence  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Catholic  Church  ' 
— overruling  all  defective  processes  and  educing  truth 
even  out  of  that  which  is  recognized  as  error.  I  am  glad 
to  think  that  up  to  a  certain  point  I  can  go  with  you 
here.  You  are  quite  right  in  noticing  that  I  spoke  myself 
of  '  the  good  Providence  of  God  presiding  over  the  whole 
evolution  '.  I  not  only  spoke  of  this  but  desired,  and 
desire,  to  lay  stress  upon  it.  The  belief  in  this  is  very 
real  with  me. 

I  had  a  reason  for  adopting  a  rather  different  mode  of 
expression,  though  I  do  not  wish  to  press  it  to  the  exclusion 
of  yours.  I  would  rather  take  your  more  limited  and 
specific  formula  as  included  in  mine.  My  reason  for  pre- 
ferring the  larger  expression  was  because  I  wished  to  cover 
the  whole  evolution,  pre-Christian  as  well  as  Christian. 
I  was  anxious  to  take  in  the  whole  of  the  Old  Dispensa- 
tion as  well  as  of  the  New.  Not  only  have  I  a  strong 
feeling  that  we  ought  to  do  this,  but  I  also  believe  that  we 
strengthen  our  case  considerably  by  doing  so. 

When  all  is  said,  the  best  proof  of  Divine  intervention 
and  assistance  in  the  spiritual  education  of  the  human 
race  is  to  be  found  within  the  four  corners  of  the  Bible. 


46     Form  and  Cojitent  in  Christian  Tradition 

No  higher  revelation  of  religious  truth  has  ever  been  made, 
or  is  likely  ever  to  be  made,  than  that  which  is  contained 
in  the  Life  as  well  as  in  the  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
And  in  all  the  rest  of  human  history,  there  are  no  signs  of 
God's  presence  and  guidance  which  stand  out  so  boldly  as 
those  which  cluster  thickly  round  the  double  line  of  ascent 
to  and  descent  from  Him. 

Along  these  lines  we  come  from  time  to  time  upon  con- 
centrated sayings  which  sum  up  in  classical  language  the 
most  fundamental  principles  of  religion.  '  Hear,  0  Israel : 
the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord  ;  and  thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  might '  ;  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyseK  '  ;  '  The  Lord  is  slow  to  anger,  and  plenteous 
in  mercy,  forgiving  iniquity  and  transgression  and  sin,  and 
will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty  '  ;  '  Like  as  a  father 
pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear 
him  '  ;  '  This  is  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the 
house  of  Israel  after  those  days,  saith  the  Lord  ;  I  will 
put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  in  their  heart  will 
I  write  it ;  and  I  will  be  their  God,  and  they  shaU  be  my 
people  '  ;  *  The  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him  ; 
and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed  '. 

x\nd  yet,  even  in  this  foundation-laying  period  in  which 
God  seemed  nearest  to  man  and  in  which  Divine  action 
upon  the  human  mind  appeared  at  its  greatest  intensity — 
even  then  we  can  discern  certain  setbacks  or  limitations  : 
such  as,  almost  to  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament  period, 
defective  grasp  upon  a  future  life,  a  strict  law  of  retalia- 
tion, mistaken  emphasis  on  the  alleged  correspondence 
between  sin  and  suffering,  earthly  prosperity  and  moral 
desert,  and  from  time  to  time  a  startling  narrowness  of 
identification  between  the  national  cause  of  Israel  and  the 
cause  of  God. 

But  if  the  pre-Christian  stage  of  preparation,  though  in 
many  ways  a  time  of  intense  inspiration,  was  subject  to 
drawbacks  such  as  these,  stiU  less  can  it  be  said  that  the 


Dr.  Sanday  II  47 

later  periods  of  Church  History  have  been  exempt  from 
them.  We  may  mark  off  three  distinct  stages  :  {a)  the 
period  of  the  Undivided  Church  ;  (6)  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
(c)  the  great  break-up  of  Christian  Unity  and  its  sequel. 
Let  us  grant  that,  on  the  whole,  a  fairly  optimistic  view 
is  possible  of  the  first  of  these  stages  ;  however  thick  the 
traces  may  be  in  it  of  '  all  too  human '  infirmities,  theoreti- 
cal and  practical,  it  may  be  reasonable  to  detect  a  Divine 
overruling  in  the  broad  formulation  of  Christian  doctrine. 
But,  whatever  allowance  may  be  made  for  this,  it  must 
be  difficult  to  maintain  as  much  for  either  of  the  periods 
which  followed.  Ideal  elements  were  not  wanting  in  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  but  the  upshot  of  the  period  was  such  an 
accumulation  of  abuses  and  corruptions  as  to  call  for 
drastic  reformation.  And  this  reformation,  in  its  turn, 
so  broke  up  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ  that  com- 
bined and  effective  action  of  the  Church  as  a  whole  is  no 
longer  possible.  It  must  be  regarded  as  suspended,  until 
the  conditions  are  once  again  more  favourable. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  and  because  of  these  drawbacks 
that  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  follow  you  in  the  picture  that 
you  draw  of  the  present  position  of  Christian  Doctrine. 
As  a  picture,  it  is  beautiful  and  attractive.  But  my 
feeHng  about  it  is  that  it  is  all  in  the  air  ;  it  is  out  of  touch 
with  the  workaday  world  ;  it  is  a  work  of  the  imagination, 
an  '  unsubstantial  pageant ',  neither  verified  nor  capable 
of  verification.  You  yourself  describe  it  as  reached  by  an 
'  intuition  '.  But  does  not  that  really  mean  '  assumed 
without  proof  '  ?  What  assurance  have  we  that  it  corre- 
sponds to  the  reality  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that,  so  long  as  we  keep  to  broad  lines 
and  to  general  statements,  a  fair  case  may  be  made  out 
for  tracing  the  hand  of  God  in  history,  and  for  the  belief 
that  the  broad  outlines  of  the  Christian  Creed  are  what  He 
would  have  them  to  be.  But  when  the  attempt  is  made 
to  go  beyond  this  and  to  maintain  that  each  minute  detail 
remains  true  in  precisely  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was 


48     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

held  fourteen  or  fifteen  or  sixteen  centuries  ago,  then  I 
must  needs  think  that  the  contention  goes  beyond  what 
we  have  warrant  for.  I  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  with  the 
inevitable  amount  of  change  that  I  see  going  on  in  the 
world  around  me. 

I  would  venture  to  generalize  a  step  further.  There  is, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  no  exception  to  the  law  that  '  we  have 
our  treasure  in  earthen  vessels  '  ;  in  other  words,  that 
Divine  communications  of  every  kind  are  mediated  to 
man  through  men,  through  human  faculties,  with  all  their 
weaknesses  and  limitations  adhering  to  them.  Man  is 
privileged  to  co-operate  with  God  ;  He  is  auuepyh  ©€ov. 
But  that  never  means  that  His  own  nature  ceases  to  be 
what  it  is.  If  it  did,  he  would  cease  to  be  a  free  agent  ; 
he  would  be  a  passive  instrument,  and  not  an  agent  at  all. 

We  see  this  in  every  field  ;  in  the  whole  Christian  life  of 
prayer  and  answers  to  prayer,  in  the  life  of  individuals 
singly  and  in  the  mass.  The  genuinely  human  element 
may  be  increased  or  diminished,  but  it  is  never  eliminated. 
This  means  that  a  partial  control  from  above  of  human 
thought  and  action  enters  into  the  scheme  of  things,  but 
a  complete  control  does  not  enter  into  it.  I  think  I  may 
say,  no  control  so  complete  as  to  satisfy  the  conditions 
which  your  view  would  require. 


VI 

It  is  true  that  different  parts  of  the  Creed  are  on  a  rather 
different  footing.  And  I  am  not  sure  that  we  have  not 
to  some  extent  been  playing  at  cross  purposes  about  it. 
Your  argument  has  had  reference  mainly  to  what  I  may 
call  the  metaphysical  or  ontological  aspects  of  the  Creeds, 
whereas  I  have  had  chiefly  in  mind  the  statements  that 
would  come  rather  under  the  head  of  history.  I  gladly 
admit  that  what  you  have  said  about  the  essential  sim- 
plicity of  the  ontological  statements  is  much  to  the  point 
and  well  deserves  to  be  borne  in  mind.     I  have  said 


Dr.  Sanday  II  49 

already  that  I  do  not  wish  to  call  in  question  any  of  these 
statements.  I  do  not  think  there  is  one  to  which  I  should 
wish  to  offer  anything  that  is  in  the  nature  of  contra- 
diction. I  fully  believe  that,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  the 
ultimate  formulations  accepted  by  the  Church  were 
always  in  the  right  direction.  It  is  just  in  this  that  I  am 
prepared  to  see  Divine  guidance  and  overruling.  There 
was,  if  we  may  say  so,  an  instinct  at  work  in  the  Church 
which  out  of  seemingly  unpromising  conditions  and  by 
seemingly  unpromising  methods  was  found  to  lead  in  the 
end  to  what  we  can  recognize  as  right  decisions.  All  that 
I  would  wish  to  say  by  way  of  reserve  is  that  the  modern 
mind  has  perhaps  learnt  to  be  still  more  on  its  guard 
against  the  dangers  of  over-definition  ;  it  is  more  aware 
of  its  own  limitations  ;  and  it  is  specially  reluctant  to 
venture  too  far  in  its  affirmations  about  God.  The  famous 
passage  in  Hooker  {Eccl.  Pol.  I.ii.  2)  stands  out  as  a  warn- 
ing that  the  best  divines  of  the  Church  of  England  have 
always  kept  well  before  them.  I  do  not  think  that  there 
is  any  danger  of  their  not  doing  so  in  future. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  historical  statements  embodied 
in  the  Creeds.  So  far  as  these  are  historical,  they  are  on 
the  same  footing  as  all  history.  We  do  not  write  history 
now  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  was  written  two  centuries 
ago.  And  if  this  holds  good  for  the  history  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  it  must  also  hold  good  for  the  history  of  Palestine. 
We  cannot  mark  off  one  small  corner,  and  apply  to  it 
different  methods  and  principles  from  those  which  we 
apply  to  all  the  rest.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  history 
of  the  Old  Testament  period  has  been,  or  is  in  process  of 
being,  rewritten  on  these  methods  and  principles.  The 
only  remaining  question  is  how  far  they  are  similarly 
applicable  to  the  New  Testament  period.  And  it  seems  to 
me  that  we  have  no  choice  but  to  go  forward  frankly  upon 
the  same  Unes. 

In  the  end  what  determines  the  interpretation  of  the 
New  Testament  will  determine  also  the  interpretation  of 

£ 


50     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

the  Creeds.  The  New  Testament  supplies  the  data  that 
are  worked  up  in  the  Creeds.  It  follows  that,  if  there  is 
a  progressive  reinterpretation  of  the  one,  the  same  thing 
must  hold  good  of  the  other. 


VII 

It  is  here  that  the  work  of  the  modernist,  and  especially 
of  the  modernist  scholar,  comes  in.  His  supreme  desire 
and  effort  is  to  see  things  as  they  really  are,  and  to  make 
his  life  and  thought  all  of  a  piece.  As  it  is,  he  has  no 
confidence  that  he  is  doing  this.  So  long  as  he  merely 
reproduces  the  traditional  story,  he  is  haunted  by  a  sense 
that  the  ground  beneath  his  feet  is  no  more  secure  than  it 
is  in  the  case  of  other  traditional  stories.  He  feels  that 
he  must  go  behind  this,  and  go  behind  it  methodically  and 
systematically  ;  he  must  bring  to  bear  upon  it  all  the 
resources  of  historical  and  critical  experience. 

That  does  not  mean  that  he  must  pin  himself  down  to 
any  particular  set  of  conclusions.  The  search  for  truth 
in  these  matters  is  certainly  at  the  present  time  some  way 
from  finality.  The  virtue  is  in  the  search,  rather  than  (as 
yet)  in  the  results  of  the  search.  As  we  look  back  over 
the  investigations  of  the  last  fifty  or  sixty  years,  what  they 
seem  to  have  done  is  to  have  turned  a  strong  searchlight 
fiirst  upon  this  and  then  upon  that  point  in  the  real 
sequence  of  the  New  Testament  history  ;  the  points  are 
real  points,  and  to  have  become  conscious  of  them  is 
a  genuine  step  in  advance  ;  but  it  would  be  another  thing 
to  say  that  up  till  now  we  have  succeeded  in  setting  them 
all  in  their  just  proportions  and  correlating  them  exactly 
with  each  other.  The  movement  is  a  progressive  move- 
ment, and  we  must  be  content  if  we  can  make  way  by  slow 
degrees. 

And  yet,  after  all,  these  studies  in  which  Christian 
scholars  have  been  employed,  important  as  they  are  and 
near  as  they  are  to  the  fountain-head,  belong  to  the  field 


Dr.  Sanday  II  51 

of  externals  ;  they  have  to  do  rather  with  expression  than 
with  that  which  is  expressed.  They  are  not  themselves  the 
full  spiritual  meaning,  which  comes  to  light  through  them. 
The  reason  why  these  studies  of  which  I  have  been  speaking 
are  pursued  so  eagerly  as  they  are  is  in  the  hope  of  disen- 
gaging more  and  more  of  that  full  spiritual  meaning. 

And  I  myself  beheve  that  this  inner  meaning  will  not 
be  found  to  be  essentially  different  from  what  it  has  been 
all  along,  I  would  not  say  that  it  exactly  is,  but  it 
certainly  lies  behind,  the  theology  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John. 
Even  those  first  and  greatest  of  all  theologies  require 
some  discrimination  between  form  and  content  ;  even 
they  embody  features  which  are  taken  from  the  current 
thought  of  the  time  ;  even  they  involve  a  certain  process 
of  translation  and  interpretation  when  we  attempt  to 
express  them  in  the  forms  most  natural  to  ourselves.  But 
translation  and  interpretation  are  a  different  thing  from 
essential  change. 

I  gladly  accept  your  own  expressive  image  (p.  35), 
which  becomes  most  expressive  when  we  think  of  the 
subject  of  it  as  human.  The  child,  the  boy,  the  youth, 
the  man,  differ  to  some  extent,  though  never  wholly,  in 
outward  physiognomy  ;  but  the  inner  personality,  the 
vital  organs,  are  one  and  the  same. 

I  suppose  that  few  philosophical  problems  are  more 
difficult  than  the  precise  definition  of  that  which  consti- 
tutes identity.  Your  own  conception  of  the  identity  of 
Christian  doctrine  in  the  present  and  in  the  past  implies 
such  a  definition.  But  I  am  afraid  I  must  ask  for  a 
greater  amount  of  latitude  than  you  seem  inclined  to 
grant.  When  you  say  that  '  each  doctrine,  as  it  took 
shape,  assumed  precisely  that  form  which  the  Holy  Spirit 
foresaw  would  most  perfectly  preserve  the  essential 
content  till  the  end  of  time  '  (p.  32  sup.),  it  seems  to  me 
that  you  are  claiming  too  much.  You  are  not  content 
with  assuming  that  the  essential  content  remains  the 
same,  but  you  go  on  to  assert  that  the  outward  form  or 

£  2 


52     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

expression  must  be  equally  immutable.  I  find  it  hard  to 
reconcile  this  language  with  what  is  implied  in  your  own 
analogies.  Does  it  allow  for  the  inevitable  processes  of 
growth  ?  If  the  world  were  constructed  on  mechanical 
principles — if  the  thoughts  in  men's  minds  were  like  coins 
in  a  box — then,  one  could  believe  that  what  was  handed 
in  at  one  point  could  be  taken  out  in  precisely  the  same 
condition  at  another.  But  that  is  surely  too  simple  a  way 
of  looking  at  it.  We  have  to  do  with  living  minds,  and 
with  a  succession  of  living  minds.  Under  such  conditions, 
the  more  natural  analogy  is  surely  that  of  organic  growth. 
And  the  essential  characteristic  of  organic  growth  is  that 
identity  and  change  are  perfectly  balanced  ;  the  single 
particles  are  in  perpetual  flux,  but  the  Hving  being,  the 
person,  remains  always  the  same.  We  meet  a  friend,  let 
us  say,  after  an  interval  o*f  ten  years,  and  we  see  at  a 
glance  that  he  is  at  once  the  same  and  not  the  same  ;  it  is 
hard  to  tell  where  the  likeness  ends  and  the  unlikeness 
begins  ;  there  is  the  subtlest  possible  identity,  and  yet 
the  subtlest  possible  difference,  in  every  feature.  The 
proportions  of  Hkeness  and  unlikeness  vary  with  the 
individual.  To  one,  the  first  words  of  one's  greeting  are, 
'  I  should  hardly  have  known  you  ;  '  to  another,  '  You 
are  not  altered  a  bit.'  And  yet,  in  both  cases  alike,  we 
take  up  the  thread  of  our  common  past  as  if  it  had  never 
been  broken. 

That  is  surely  the  law  of  life,  th^  pattern  on  which  life 
is  made  and  to  which  all  its  phases  conform.  The  history 
of  Christian  belief  and  Christian  doctrine  is  no  exception. 
It  seems  to  me  that  yOu  are  trying  to  stereotype  both 
beyond  the  point  to  which  they  can  be  or  ought  to  be 
stereotyped. 

VIII 

That  is  where — be  it  said  with  all  respect — it  seems  to 
me  that  you  are  wrong.  This  idea  of  an  infaUible  Church 
with  an  unalterable  body  of  doctrine  :  what  better  f  ounda- 


Dr.  Sanday  II  53 

tion  has  it  in  the  last  resort  than  that  you  would  like  to 
think  it  true  ?  There  have  been  and  are  many  claimants 
to  infalhbility.  But  the  previous  question  ought  to  be 
asked  :  Is  there  any  such  thing  as  infalUbility  among  the 
sons  of  men  ?    '  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.' 

Does  not  the  theory  which  you  advocate  presuppose  an 
idealized — and  even  a  highly  idealized — ^view  of  history  ? 
All  idealism  no  doubt  has  its  attractions.  But,  when  I 
think  of  this,  I  am  reminded  of  an  analogous  case  in  the 
Old  Testament.  The  Book  of  Chronicles — we  remember 
that  in  the  Hebrew  it  is  a  single  book — is  also  very  largely 
in  its  essence  an  ideal  construction.  It  is  a  rewriting  of 
Judaean  history  on  certain  definite  principles.  The 
author  is  strongly  impressed  with  one  of  the  current 
articles  of  Jewish  belief,  the  strict  correspondence  of 
outward  prosperity  with  moral  and  religious  desert,  the 
doctrine  that  the  wicked  are  punished  and  the  Tighteous 
rewarded  even  in  this  life.  The  narrative  is  cut  out  to  fit 
this  doctrine,  just  as  a  coat  is  cut  to  fit  the  wearer.  Awk- 
ward and  intractable  facts  (like  the  sins  of  David  and 
Solomon)  are  studiously  omitted  ;  and,  where  further 
details  are  needed  to  make  good  the  moral,  they  are  duly 
supplied.  Then  again,  the  author  is  also  an  enthusiast 
for  the  fully  developed  ceremonial  of  his  own  day,  and  he 
reads  this  back  into  the  times  of  David  and  Solomon  ;  he 
describes  the  great  functions  of  their  reigns  as  if  they 
had  been  conducted  in  accordance  with  the  fullest  later 
standards  ;  and  in  other  ways  he  is  always  levelling  up 
the  earlier  with  the  later  usage  and  depicting  things,  not 
as  they  actually  were,  but  as  he  conceives  that  they  ought 
to  have  been.  He  is  a  good  man,  but  with  the  goodness 
of  his  own  time,  and  he  corrects  the  older  authorities  in 
accordance  with  this.  But,  whatever  else  he  may  be,  he 
is  not  a  trustworthy  historian. 

In  sharp  contrast  with  this  book  are  two  others — one 
probably  written  a  hundred  years  or  so  earlier,  and  the 
other  somewhat  later — the  Books  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes. 


54     Form  and  Content  in  Ch?istian   Tradition 

As  compared  with  the  author  of  Chronicles,  the  authors 
of  both  these  books  might  be  called  reahsts.  Their  one 
endeavour  is  to  see  things  as  they  are.  They  will  not  go 
on  repeating  the  old  phrases,  unless  they  are  sure  that  they 
are  true.  The  doctrine  of  the  unfailing  prosperity  of  the 
righteous  and  penalizing  of  the  wicked  is  a  stumbling- 
block  to  them.  They  see  that  it  does  not  correspond  to  the 
facts,  and  they  will  not  represent  things  otherwise  than 
as  they  see  them.  They  will  not  '  speak  unrighteously 
for  God '  or  '  talk  deceitfully  for  him  '  (Job  xiii.  7).  '  The 
Preacher  '  goes  further  still ;  he  is  not  only  a  realist 
but  a  pessimist  ;  he  does  not  shrink  from  saying  what  he 
believes  to  be  true,  however  paradoxical  it  may  sound. 
Yet  his  temper  is  austere  and  grave,  and  he  is  resigned 
not  to  know  more  than  is  revealed  to  him. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  there  should  have  been  some 
hesitation  about  admitting  this  last  book  within  the  Canon. 
Yet  I  think  that  we  have  much  reason  to  be  glad  that  it 
was  admitted.  It  represents  a  type  of  mind  and  character 
which  deserves  to  be  consecrated  to  God's  service.  We 
may  take  it  as  an  illustration  of  the  truth  that  '  God 
fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways  '. 

It  is  really  for  a  further  recognition  of  this  truth  that 
I  have  been  pleading.  I  do  not  take  it  amiss  that  you  do 
not  see  your  way  to  grant  me  all  that  I  have  asked  for. 
In  matters  such  as  this  rapprochements  are  not  to  be 
forced.  We  must  wait  in  patience  until  they  come  about 
spontaneously  and  naturally. 

Beheve  me, 
Always  yours  sincerely, 

W.  SANDAY. 


MR.  N.  P.  WILLIAMS'S  SECOND  LETTER 

My  dear  Dr.  Sanday, 

Permit  me  to  thank  you  very  sincerely  for  your 
letter,  and  to  express  my  gratification  that  we  have  been 
able  to  discover  so  much  common  ground.  I  gather  from 
certain  expressions  in  your  letter  that  the  extent  to 
which  you  would  go  with  me  is  greater  even  than  I  had 
hoped  :  and  I  am  indeed  glad  that  this  is  so.  In  this 
paper  I  propose  to  examine  the  divergences  that  remain, 
to  reply  to  the  criticisms  which  you  have  directed  against 
my  position,  and,  if  possible,  to  trace  our  remaining 
divergences  in  respect  of  conclusions  down  to  their 
ultimate  root  in  differences  of  fundamental  assumptions. 
The  methods  and  canons  of  right  reasoning  are  the  same 
for  all :  so  also  are  the  data  of  sense-experience  :  when, 
therefore,  two  equally  reasonable  people  (if  I  may  with- 
out presumption  bracket  myself  with  you  in  this  way) 
come  to  different  conclusions  in  respect  of  the  same 
subject-matter,  it  must  necessarily  be  because  they  are 
using  different  axioms,  or  (as  Plato  would  say)  different 
dpxou  dvvTToOeTOL.  All  chains  of  proof  depend  ultimately 
upon  assumptions  which  themselves  neither  require  nor 
are  capable  of  proof  ;  otherwise  ratiocination  of  every 
kind  would,  when  analysed,  dissolve  away  into  an 
infinite  regress.  It  is  therefore  rigorously  certain  that 
our  differences  can  be  reduced  to  differences  of  funda- 
mental, unproved,  and  unprovable  assumption  ;  and  the 
laying  bare  of  these  divergent  dp^ai  is  the  task  which 
I  shall  propose  to  myself  in  this  paper.  I  could,  of  course, 
did  time  and  space  permit,  write  a  running  commentary 
upon  the  whole  of  your  letter  ;  there  are  parts  of  it  with 
which  I  heartily  agree,  parts  to  which  I  assent  with 
rather  less  enthusiasm,  or  which  I  do  not  feel  called  upon 


56     Form  and  Content  in  Christian   Tradition 

seriously  to  challenge,  though  I  might  myself  wish  to 
word  them  differently — and  parts  with  which  I  must 
needs  disagree  in  toto.  It  will  conduce  both  to  brevity 
and  to  clearness  if  I  confine  myself  to  the  consideration 
of  these  latter. 


I  think  it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  your  letter,  on  the 
whole,  vindicates  the  correctness  of  my  diagnosis  of  the 
situation  as  between  the  views  which  you  have  expressed 
on  the  subject  of  the  creeds  and  their  authority,  and  those 
which  I  have  tried  to  expound.  I  expressed  the  opinion 
(you  will  remember)  that  the  fons  et  origo  of  the  cleavage 
between  us  was  to  be  found  in  the  divergent  opinions 
which  we  held  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  guidance  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  controlled  (and  presumably  scUl  controls) 
the  evolution  of  Christian  dogma.  And  I  suggested  that, 
whilst  this  idea  was  accepted  by  both  of  us,  you  did  not 
appear  to  admit  it  '  to  anything  like  the  extent  which 
I  desired  '.  I  am,  of  course,  only  too  glad  to  learn  that 
this  phrase  was  in  your  opinion  over-strong.  But  I  gather 
from  your  subsequent  remarks  that  there  is  a  real  diver- 
gence, though  not  so  great  as  I  had  feared — and  that 
this  divergence  is  the  fount,  or  one  of  the  founts,  of  all 
our  subsequent  differences.  You  say,  indeed  (on  p.  45), 
that  you  do  not  wish  to  challenge  my  phrase  about  '  the 
immanent  personal  presence  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
the  Catholic  Church ',  and  prefer  to  take  the  idea  for 
which  it  stands  as  included  in  your  own  more  compre- 
hensive conception  of  Divine  Providence  as  presiding 
over  the  whole  course  of  Judaeo-Christian  evolution. 
But  (without  any  wish  to  lay  stress  on  points  of  difference, 
and  actuated  merely  by  the  desire  to  expose  the  logic  of 
the  matter)  I  am  constrained  to  observe  that  you  almost 
immediately  take  back  with  one  hand  a  good  deal  of 
what  you  seem  to  be  giving  me  with  the  other.  For 
you  bring  against  my  view  of  Church  authority  in  doctrinal 


Mr.  N,  P.  Williams  II  57 

matters  a  number  of  criticisms,  some  of  which,  at  least, 
if  they  could  be  sustained,  would,  to  my  mind,  have  the 
ejBPect  of  upsetting  it  altogether.  My  first  task  must, 
therefore,  be  that  of  replying  to  these  criticisms  :  when 
that  has  been  done,  I  may  proceed  to  lay  bare  a  second 
difference  of  fundamental  assumption,  which,  equally 
with  the  first,  seems  to  lie  at  the  root  of  the  schism  be- 
tween the  Traditionalist  and  the  Modernist  tendencies  in 
Christian  thought. 

II 

The  first  criticism  which  I  will  discuss  is  directed 
against  my  admission  that  the  fundamental  postulate  of 
the  Catholic  system,  viz.  the  belief  in  the  guiding  presence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church,  or,  more  briefly,  the 
belief  in  the  '  infallibility  '  of  the  Church,  rests  frankly 
upon  an  intuition.  You  ask  '  Does  not  this  mean,  assumed 
without  proof  ?  '  To  which  I  reply.  Of  course  it  does. 
From  the  view-point  of  uncompromising  orthodoxy,  this 
behef  is  the  fundamental  assumption,  which  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  both  unproved  and  unprovable, 
because  it  is  itself  the  prius  which  makes  any  kind  of 
proof  possible — the  apx^  dvairoSeLKros  which  is  the  neces- 
sary presupposition  of  aU  soHd  and  reliable  dnoSei^Ls  in 
the  domain  of  Christian  doctrine.  You  are  at  liberty, 
if  you  will — and  are  able — to  disprove  this  fundamental 
assumption  of  traditional  dogmatic  theology  by  showing 
that  the  Church  has  laid  down  as  of  faith  statements 
which  are  now  certainly  known  to  be  untrue  :  though 
I  cannot  say  that  I  have  much  fear  of  your  being  able 
to  do  so.  But  I  do  not  see  that  you  can  reasonably 
object  to  what  is  admittedly  put  forward  as  an  dpxv 
dvaTToS^LKTos  merely  for  heing  dvairoSeLKros.  You  might 
as  well  criticize  the  Laws  of  Thought,  or  the  axioms 
of  geometry,  for  being  '  assumed  without  proof ' — 
which  is  exactly  what  they  are.  After  all,  the  other 
sciences  are  all  based  upon  assumptions  which  in  the 


58     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

last  analysis  are  seen  to  be  themselves  incapable  of 
proof  :  otherwise  (as  I  said  above)  all  scientific  demonstra- 
tion, whether  deductive  or  inductive,  would  be  a  chain 
hanging  from  nothing,  a  ladder  losing  itself  in  the  mists 
of  an  infinite  regress.  The  world  may  rest  upon  an 
elephant,  and  the  elephant  upon  a  tortoise  :  but  the 
tortoise  must  be  provided  with  a  ttov  (ttco  which  needs 
no  further  support.  This  is  most  obviously  clear  in  the 
case  of  the  deductive  sciences,  such  as  mathematics  : 
but  it  is  really  none  the  less  true  in  the  case  of  the  empirical 
sciences,  which  presuppose  such  utterly  unprovable  postu- 
lates as  the  existence  of  an  external  world,  and  the 
reliability  of  sense-perception.  In  the  spheres  of  conduct 
and  of  aesthetic  feeling,  the  same  is  the  case  ;  the  scales 
of  moral  and  aesthetic  values,  which  all  reasoning  about 
the  Good  or  the  Beautiful  necessarily  presupposes,  are 
given  us  by  the  ethical  and  aesthetic  senses  respectively 
— that  is,  by  ethical  and  aesthetic  '  intuition  ' — and  not 
by  ratiocination.  Even  in  the  practical  life  of  every  day, 
we  find  ourselves  at  every  turn  acting  upon  principles 
of  which  we  are  certain,  though  they  cannot  be  proved  : 
which  are  given  us  by  the  Practical,  and  not  by  the  Pure 
Reason  :  we  have  to  walk,  in  great  measure,  by  faith 
and  not  by  sight.  And  if  every  other  domain  of  human 
thought,  feeling,  and  action  possesses  and  presupposes 
its  own  fundamental  and  indemonstrable  first  principles, 
why  need  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  that  refigion 
in  general  (and  the  Christian  refigion  in  particular)  should 
possess  its  own  dp^al  dvanoSeiKTOL,  as  the  starting-point 
for  all  subsequent  dnoSei^L^  ?  You  would  not  deny 
(I  imagine)  that  the  great  ideas  of  refigion  in  general 
— God,  Freedom,  Immortafity — are  matters  of  intuition 
rather  than  of  demonstration  :  you  would  hardly  maintain 
that  the  stock  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God  have 
been  unaffected  by  Kant's  destructive  criticism,  or  that 
the  being  and  attributes  of  the  Godhead  can  be  '  proved  ' 
from  the  data  of  sense-experience  as  easily  and  certainly 


Mr.  N,  P.  Williams  II  59 

as  Paley  supposed.  For  the  believing  soul,  the  reality 
of  a  loving  and  all-merciful  Father  and  Creator  rests 
primarily  upon  intuition,  or  spiritual  experience,  or  the 
Divine  gift  of  Faith  (they  are  all  names  for  the  same 
ineffable  interior  sense  of  God's  presence),  and  not  upon 
reasoning,  whether  deductive  or  inductive  :  and  for  the 
vast  majority  of  Christian  believers  this  sense  of  the 
reality  of  God  is  indissolubly  knit  up  with  the  sense  of 
Him  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  to  Himself,  and 
of  Christ  in  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments,  healing, 
restoring,  sanctifying.  I  venture  to  claim  that  you 
cannot,  in  logic,  disparage  the  idea  of  '  intuition  '  of 
Divine  things,  without  destroying  the  basal  foundations 
of  rehgious  conviction  altogether. 

You  draw  a  contrast  between  my  view,  based  frankly 
on  '  intuition  ',  and  your  own  rather  vaguer  view  of  the 
extent  to  which  the  Holy  Spirit  presided  over  the  whole 
course  of  Judaeo-Christian  evolution,  for  which  you 
claim  to  find  '  a  real  warrant  in  history  '.  You  suggest, 
a  little  further  on,  that  I  am  going  beyond  the  warrant 
of  history  in  pressing  this  Divine  guidance,  during  the 
Christian  period,  to  the  point  of  endowing  the  Christian 
Church  with  '  infallibility '.  I  imagine  that  I  should  not 
be  representing  your  contention  unfairly  if  I  summarized 
it  as  claiming  that  your  view  rests  upon  a  scientific,  or 
more  or  less  scientific,  or  exact,  induction  from  the  facts 
of  history,  whereas  mine  rests  upon  an  unverifiable 
intuition.  And  you  instance  some  of  the  great  texts  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  proofs  of  the  reality  of  this  Divine 
guidance,  understood  in  a  general  sense.  But  I  must 
point  out  that  your  induction,  if  closely  analysed,  really 
rests  at  every  point  upon  an  intuition  at  least  as  unveri- 
fiable as  mine — it  is,  in  fact,  a  whole  series  of  such  in- 
tuitions rather  than  an  induction  properly  so  called.  An 
example  will  explain  what  I  mean.  You  quote  the  texts 
'  The  Lord  is  slow  to  anger  and  plenteous  in  mercy.  .  .  .', 
'  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth 


60     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

them  that  fear  him  '  :  and  you  claim  them  as  proofs  of 
'  Divine  intervention  and  assistance  in  the  spiritual 
education  of  the  human  race  '.  This  argument,  I  imagine, 
really  amounts  to  the  following — '  These  great  texts, 
scattered  at  intervals  throughout  the  pages  of  the  Old 
Testament,  are  manifestly  Divine  :  we  can,  therefore, 
infer  from  them  that  a  Divine  force  must  have  been  at 
work  behind  and  beneath  the  course  of  Israelitish  history, 
bearing  it  ever  upwards  until  the  Old  Covenant  culminated 
in  the  New  ;  and  the  same  induction  can  be  made  with 
even  greater  certitude  from  the  facts  of  the  Gospels  and 
the  subsequent  history  of  Christendom.'  Yes,  but  on 
what  does  your  premiss  rest,  viz.  the  proposition  that 
'  these  great  texts  are  manifestly  Divine  '  ?  Is  not  this 
proposition  '  assumed  without  proof  ',  and  does  it  not 
frankly  '  rest  upon  an  intuition  '  ?  To  put  the  question 
in  another  way,  how  do  you  know  that  God,  or  the 
Absolute  Reality,  or  (to  use  Herbert  Spencer's  phrase) 
'  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  aU  things 
proceed  ',  is  of  the  same  moral  nature  as  that  commended 
in  these  texts  ?  From  the  point  of  view  of  pure  reason 
and  rigorous  proof,  the  statements  that  '  The  Lord  is 
plenteous  in  mercy  '  and,  fatherlike,  '  pitieth  them  that 
fear  him  ',  are  by  no  means  self-evident.  On  the  con- 
trary, if  I  did  not  (through  no  merits  of  my  own)  possess 
the  intuition,  or  the  '  gift  of  Faith  ',  I  should  be  strongly 
inclined — looking  at  the  waste  and  futility  of  nature, 
the  '  vanity  '  to  which  creation  is  manifestly  subjected 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  tragedies  of  human  history, 
the  immense  catalogue  of  man's  crimes,  cruelties,  and 
sufferings,  and  the  seas  of  blood  and  tears  which  are 
drenching  Europe  at  the  present  moment,  on  the  other 
— to  conceive  the  ultimate  Reality  as  a  non-moral  and 
impersonal  Absolute.  It  is  useless  to  object  '  But  that 
would  be  pure  cynicism  ' :  we  are,  for  the  moment, 
concerned  simply  with  what  can  be  proved  :  and  from 
the  point  of  view  of  rigorous  proof  the  cynic  can  make 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  61 

out  just  as  a  good  a  case  for  an  atheistic  view  of  history 
as  you  and  I  can  for  a  theistic  view.  It  is  Faith,  or 
spiritual  intuition,  alone,  which  assures  us  that  Gk)d  is 
Love  :  that  the  prophets  of  old,  who  discerned  infinite 
tenderness  and  fatherly  affection  and  compassion  at  the 
heart  of  the  universe,  were  not  deceived ;  that  the 
tragedies  of  nature  and  of  human  history  (in  so  far  as 
they  are  not  directly  due  to  the  perverted  will  of  man) 
must  be  susceptible  of  some  explanation  transcending 
our  present  faculties,  some  reconciliation  with  the  infinite 
power  and  goodness  of  the  world's  Creator.  The  first 
stanza  of  '  In  Memoriam  '  contains  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter — 

Strong  Son  of  God,  immortal  Love, 

Whom  we,  that  have  not  seen  thy  face. 
By  Faith,  and  Faith  alone,  embrace. 

Believing  where  we  cannot  prove?- 

I  have  said  enough,  I  hope,  to  show,  not  merely  that 
you  cannot  justly  make  it  a  matter  of  reproach  to  me 
that  my  view  is  frankly  based  upon  an  intuition,  but 
that  your  own,  somewhat  vaguer,  view  is  equally  based 
upon  intuition — and,  indeed,  upon  the  same  intuition, 
or  an  intuition  of  the  same  facts — only,  as  I  should  hold, 
of  a  somewhat  imperfect  character.    But  I  cannot  forbear 

^  You  will  have  gathered  from  the  foregoing  what  kind  of  reply 
I  should  give  to  your  observation  on  p.  52,  the  rhetorical  force  of 
which  I  fully  recognize — '  This  idea  of  an  infallible  Church  with  an 
unalterable  body  of  doctrine  :  what  better  foundation  has  it  in  the  last 
resort  than  that  you  would  like  to  think  it  true  ?  '  If  you  will  allow  me, 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  momentarily  to  assume  a  standpoint 
which  is  not  in  reality  mine,  I  might  retort  with  another  question — 
'  This  idea  of  a  "  personal  God  " — of  an  illimitable  supra-mundane 
Power,  self-conscious,  righteous,  and  loving,  interfering  in  the  affairs 
of  men,  and  shaping  the  course  of  human  history  towards  some  far-off 
divine  goal — what  better  foxmdation  has  it  in  the  last  resort  than  that 
you  would  like  to  think  it  true  ? '  I  imagine  that  your  reply  to  the  latter 
question  would,  mutatis  mutandis,  serve  equally  well  as  my  reply  to 
the  former. 


62     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

from  driving  this  contention  home  by  pointing  out  that 
you  have  expressly  admitted  it  in  several  places,  only 
using  a  different  word  to  designate  the  very  same  mode 
of  spiritual  activity  which  I  have  called  '  intuition  '. 
That  word  is  '  feeling '.  I  need  only  instance  such 
passages  as  (in  your  first  paper)  the  quotation  from 
Matthew  Arnold  about  the  difference  between  '  what  we 
say  we  feel '  and  '  what  we  think  we  feel '  and  '  what 
we  feel  indeed  ',  or  the  statement  on  p.  13,  'A  great 
deal  [of  the  living  beliefs  of  the  present  day]  may  remain 
as  a  matter  of  feeling  rather  than  of  words.'  It  is  surely 
not  unfair  to  claim  that  the  difference  between  '  intui- 
tion '  and  '  feeling  '  is,  again,  solely  one  of  terminology. 
By  the  word  '  intuition  '  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that 
the  indefinable  faculty  of  spiritual  apprehension,  whereby 
the  soul  is  aware  of  God  in  Nature  and  in  the  Church, 
is  purely  intellectual ;  nor  (I  imagine)  do  you,  by  the 
word  '  feeling  ',  mean  that  this  faculty  is  merely  a  func- 
tion of  the  '  vegetal  soul '  or  of  the  nervous  system. 
I  doubt  whether  it  is  necessary,  for  our  present  purposes, 
or  indeed  ultimately  possible,  to  define  the  nature  of 
'  Faith  '  in  terms  of  exact  psychology  ;  probably  it  in- 
volves the  activity  of  every  '  part '  of  the  soul  (if  Aristotle's 
language  may  be  employed  for  rough-and-ready  expres- 
sion), thought,  will,  and  emotion  alike. 

But  if  this  be  so — if  my  '  intuition  '  and  your  '  feeling  ' 
are  substantially  the  same  thing — it  is  possible  to  expose, 
with  great  clearness,  the  root  of  the  difference  between 
us.  I  have  a  peculiarly  vital  and  intense  apprehension, 
or  intuition,  or  sense,  or  feehng,  of  the  presence  of  God 
in  Christ  and  Christ  in  the  Church  ;  this  enables  me  to 
lay  aside  all  further  anxieties  and  worries,  and  to  trust 
absolutely  to  the  formal  decisions  of  the  Church  as  being 
the  voice  of  God  (of  course,  speaking,  as  explained  in  my 
first  letter,  through  human  media  and  in  human  modes 
of  expression).  You,  on  the  other  hand,  have  the  same 
sense  or  apprehension  of  God  in  the  history  of  the  Jewish 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  63 

and  Christian  Churches  ;  only  in  a  somewhat  weakened 
or  attenuated  form.  Consequently,  you  are  not  able  to 
throw  yourself,  with  absolute  confidence,  back  upon  the 
Creeds  and  Ecumenical  Definitions,  as  the  nearest  equiva- 
lent to  absolute  truth  at  which  the  human  mind  is  ever 
likely  to  arrive  :  you  cannot  simply  repose  in  the  deliveries 
of  orthodox  Christian  tradition  without  more  ado  :  you 
require  to  be  reassured  at  every  turn,  by  a  special  and 
separate  '  intuition  '  or  '  feeling  ',  that  each  particular 
article  of  the  Creed  really  does  correspond  to  absolute 
reality — and,  I  gather,  in  a  few  cases  (notably  those  of 
the  historical  statements  in  the  Creeds,  of  which  more 
presently)  this  special  reassurance  is  not  forthcoming. 
A  single  intuition,  which  assures  me  of  the  truth  of 
Catholic  Christianity  as  a  whole,  is  enough  for  me  ; 
having  once,  so  to  speak,  got  inside  the  Catholic  system, 
I  have  nothing  further  to  do  (so  far  as  the  essentials  of 
faith  are  concerned)  than  to  ascertain  what,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  are  its  contents.  Having  once  taken  the  plunge, 
I  can  commit  myseK  without  hesitation  to  the  broad 
main  stream  of  historic  Christianity,  and  allow  it  to  bear 
me  whithersoever  it  will.  You,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
not  prepared  to  take  the  plunge  without  reservations  ; 
you  seem  to  desire,  as  it  were,  whilst  immersing  yourself 
in  the  stream  as  much  as  possible,  to  keep  one  foot  on 
the  bank.  The  Modernist  may  regard  this  as  a  safer 
attitude,  but  it  is  certainly  not  so  comfortable  as  mine  ; 
and,  after  all,  *  nothing  venture,  nothing  have  '.  A  Faith 
which  does  not  involve  taking  risks  is  no  Faith  at  all. 

To  sum  up.     My  reply  to  your  first  criticism  may  be 
summarized  as  follows  : 

1.  All  chains  of  proof  must  start  somewhere — they  pre- 

suppose indemonstrable  dpxai  which  must  neces- 
sarily be  given  by  immediate  intuition  and  not  by 
ratiocination. 

2.  The  great  ideas  of  refigion — (jrod.  Freedom,  Immor- 

tality— are   conspicuous   instances   of  such   inde- 


64     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

monstrable  dp^aL — ^the  so-called  '  proofs  '  of  their 
reality  are  now  generally  regarded  as  inconclusive, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  rigorous  reasoning. 

3.  You  yourself  really  seem  to  admit  the  principle  of 

'  intuition  '  by  the  use  which  you  make  of  the 
term  '  feeling  '. 

4.  In  fact,  '  intuition '  or  '  feeling '  seems  to  play  an 

even  greater  part  in  your  system  than  it  does  in 
mine  :  because  /  merely  invoke  the  idea  of  '  in- 
tuition '  at  the  beginning  of  things,  to  give  me  my 
first  principle — God  in  Christ  and  Christ  in  the 
Church — the  peg  from  which  my  chain  of  proof 
is  to  hang  :  having  obtained  my  dp^rj  by  means 
of  'intuition ',  I  can  then  proceed  by  way  of  pure 
ratiocination,  or  rather  of  mere  inspection  of  the 
facts  ;  I  have  only  to  inform  myself  as  to  what 
the  deliveries  of  orthodox  tradition  actually  are. 
Whereas  you  not  merely  invoke  '  intuition  '  or 
'  feeling  '  at  the  beginning  of  things,  but  keep  on 
invoking  it  all  through  ;  not  merely  does  your  chain 
depend  from  the  peg  of  '  intuition  ',  but  half  of 
its  links  appear  to  be  '  intuitions  '  as  weU. 

Ill 

The  second  criticism  with  which  I  have  to  deal  is 
contained  in  the  words  '  Does  not  the  theory  which  you 
advocate  presuppose  an  idealized  and  even  a  highly 
idealized  view  of  history  ?  '  You  will  forgive  me  if 
I  paraphrase  this  somewhat  bluntly,  and  substitute  for 
'  an  idealized  view  of  history  '  the  words  '  a  view  of 
history  which  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  strictly  true — 
which  has  been,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
constructed  in  accordance  with  preconceived  ideas  and  not 
with  facts  '  ;  because  that,  after  all  (if  we  are  willing  to 
caU  a  spade  a  spade)  is  what  the  expression  '  an  idealized 
view  of  history  '  really  means.  And  the  comparison 
which  you  institute  between  the  view  of  early  Christian 


3Ir.  N.  P.  Williams  II  65 

history  which  you  attribute  to  me  and  the  view  of  early 
Hebrew  history  which  underlies  the  Book  of  Chronicles 
bears  out  this  interpretation  of  your  words.  But  can 
you  substantiate  this  somewhat  general  indictment  ? 
To  what  historical  proposition  have  I  committed  myself 
which  can  be  certainly  shown  to  be  untrue  ?  Let  me 
quote  the  sentence  in  which  I  endeavoured  to  summarize 
the  dpxn  dvaTToSecKTos  of  traditional  dogmatic  theology  : 

'  That  great  assumption  is  the  belief  in  the  immanent 
personal  presence  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  working  in  and  through  the  processes  of  its  life, 
overruling  the  turbulence  and  ambition  of  its  leaders, 
sifting  out  the  categories  which  are  of  permanent 
value,  and  belong  to  the  essential  structure  of  human 
thought,  from  the  detritus  of  merely  temporary  and 
local  thought-forms,  and  inspiring  the  whole  nexus  of 
dogmatic  development  so  intimately  and  pervasively 
that  each  doctrine,  as  it  took  shape,  assumed  precisely 
that  form  which  the  Holy  Spirit  foresaw  would  most  per- 
fectly preserve  the  essential  content  till  the  end  of  time.' 

You  will  observe  that  this  hypothesis  has  reference 
solely  to  what  I  may  call  the  reverse,  as  opposed  to  the 
obverse,  side  of  the  historical  process — to  the  Divine 
influences  which  were  at  work  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
stream  of  events,  rather  than  to  the  events  themselves 
— ^to  the  hidden  strings  which  moved  the  marionettes, 
rather  than  to  the  marionettes  or  their  movements.  In 
all  sympathetic  historical  study — that  is,  in  all  study  of 
the  past  which  professes  to  be  more  than  a  mere  catalogu- 
ing of  desiccated  names  and  dates — we  can  distinguish 
clearly  between  (1)  the  process  of  ascertaining  the  facts, 
and  (2)  the  spiritual  and  moral  evaluation  of  the  facts 
when  ascertained.  And  my  hypothesis  belongs  avowedly 
to  the  latter  sphere  of  thought  and  not  to  the  former. 
I  desired,  and  desire,  expressly  to  'guard  myself  against 
any  suspicion  of  '  ideaUzing  '  the  actual  brute  facts. 
I  never  pretended  that  Jerome  and  Cyril  were  conspicuous 
for    meekness    and    controversial    good    manners,    that 

F 


66     Form  and  Conteiit  in  Christian  Tradition 

empresses  and  court  favourites  had  nothing  to  do  (on 
the  earthly  plane)  with  the  triumph  of  those  opinions 
which  eventually  emerged  with  the  stamp  of  '  orthodoxy  ' 
upon  them,  or  that  Ecumenical  Councils  were  invariably 
models  of  staid  and  decorous  deportment. 

All  that  my  fundamental  assumption  commits  me  to  is 
the  belief  that  the  whole  tangle  of  motives,  good  and 
bad,  which  underlay  the  struggles  between  SabelUan  and 
Tritheist,  or  Alexandrine  and  Antiochene — the  whole 
complex  of  ideas  and  imaginations,  true,  half -true,  or 
false,  mythical  or  historical,  which  filled  the  minds  of 
the  ancient  thinkers — was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  deftly 
arranged  and  imperceptibly  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
dwelling  in  the  Church,  that  truth,  or  the  nearest  approxi- 
mation to  truth  of  which  the  human  mind  is  capable, 
emerged.  I  am  only  concerned  to  maintain  that  what 
did  come  out  of  the  crucible  of  doctrinal  controversy 
was  what  God  willed  should  come  out  :  I  am  under  no 
obligation,  and  have  no  wish,  to  make  out  the  actual 
chemists,  their  materials,  or  their  methods,  to  have  been 
better  than  they  were. 

IV 

This  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  guiding  the  cor- 
porate mind  of  the  Christian  Ecclesia — in  such  a  way 
that  (through  whatever  convulsions  and  struggles)  exact 
truth,  or  truth  as  exact  as  mortals  can  hope  for,  was  in  the 
long  run  worked  out — naturally  leads  me  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  criticism  which  I  will  take  next  in  order.  It 
is  summarized  in  three  sentences  on  p.  48 : 

'  The  genuinely  human  element '  (in  the  intercourse 
of  man  and  God)  '  may  be  increased  or  diminished,  but 
it  is  never  eliminated.  This  means  that  a  partial  con- 
trol from  above  of  human  thought  and  action  enters 
into  the  scheme  of  things,  but  a  complete  control  does 
not  enter  into  it.  I  think  I  may  say,  no  control  so 
complete  as  to  satisfy  the  conditions  which  your  view 
would  require.' 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  11  67 

I  may  say  at  once  that  I  entirely  agree  with  the  first 
two  of  these  sentences.  My  last  section  will  have  shown 
you  that  I  am  very  far  from  claiming  that  the  '  genuinely 
human  element '  was  '  eliminated  '  from  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  dogma  :  very  much  the  contrary  :  as  I  have 
said,  I  fully  admit  its  presence.  I  do  not  assert  that  the 
'  control '  exerted  by  the  Holy  Spirit  was  '  complete  '  in 
the  sense  that  the  consciousnesses,  or  the  personalities, 
of  the  human  agents  concerned  were  temporarily  sus- 
pended. But  the  real  point  at  issue  comes  in  the  third 
sentence.  I  believe  that,  though  the  Divine  control  was 
very  far  from  being  '  complete  '  (in  the  sense  of  amounting 
to  Pythonic  possession  or  obsession)  and  though  it  may 
have  been  exerted  through  the  most  secret  avenues  and  in 
the  most  subtle  and  impalpable  manner  possible,  there 
was,  nevertheless,  just  enough  of  it  to  preserve  the  Chris- 
tian Church  from  laying  down  as  of  faith  propositions 
which  were  definitely  false  or  misleading  (and  this  is  all 
that  '  infallibility  ' — incapacity  for  deceiving  or  being 
deceived — really  means)  :  you,  I  gather,  do  not  feel  able 
to  postulate  even  so  much  '  control '  as  would  have  this 
effect.     But  why  not  ? 

Apparently,  because  there  are  no  other  instances  of  such 
Divine  control  exerted  upon  the  minds  of  human  beings 
in  order  to  the  formulation  of  the  contents  of  a  Divine 
revelation  in  the  most  perfect  manner  possible.  But  why 
should  we  expect  to  find  any  other  instances  ?  If  Chris- 
tianity really  is  God's  final  revelation  of  Himself  to  man- 
kind— if  it  is  never  destined  to  be  antiquated  or  superseded 
— it  must  be  regarded  as  a  phenomenon  unique  in  the 
history  of  the  human  race,  and  it  is,  therefore,  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  it  should  present  features  which  cannot 
be  paralleled  in  other  religions.  God  spake  noXv/xepm  kol 
TToXvTpoTTco?  to  thc  Hebrcw  fathers  through  the  prophets — 
imperfectly  and  fragmentarily,  through  human  faculties, 
with,  as  you  justly  observe,  all  their  weaknesses  and 

F  2 


68     F(yrm  and  Content  in  Christian  Ti'adition 

limitations  adhering  to  them  ;  but  in  these  last  days  He 
has  spoken  unto  us  by  a  Son  ;  and  if  we  believe  that  Jesus 
was,  not  merely  '  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  ',  but  the  omnipotent  Son  of  God  Himself,  it  is, 
surely,  to  be  expected  that  the  religion  which  He  founded 
should  reflect  on  all  its  sides  the  uniqueness  of  His  Person, 
At  any  rate,  it  is  not  a  priori  incredible  that  the  Incar- 
nation should  have  made  a  difference,  not  merely  to  man's 
moral,  but  to  his  mental  possibilities  :  that  the  gift  of 
sanctifying  grace  to  heal  the  disorders  of  the  will  should 
have  been  accompanied  by  the  gift  of  a  clear  and  unwaver- 
ing light  to  dispel  the  darkness  of  the  intellect.  It  is, 
therefore,  no  argument  against  the  reality  of  a  quality 
alleged  to  belong  to  the  Christian  Church  (in  this  instance, 
that  of  '  infallibility  '  in  the  formulation  of  revealed  truth) 
to  urge  that  this  quality  did  not  belong  to  the  Jewish 
Church,  or  to  any  less  perfect  religious  system. 

Formally,  these  considerations  seem  to  me  to  be  a  suffi- 
cient answer  to  your  criticism.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean 
that  they  prove,  taken  by  themselves,  that  the  Church 
really  is  '  infalHble  ',  but  merely  that  they  cancel  this 
particular  a  priori  objection  to  the  hypothesis  of  its 
'  infallibility  '.  But  I  am  unwilling  to  leave  the  matter  on 
a  merely  '  formal '  basis,  as  I  seem  to  see  the  possibility 
of  clearing  away  one  or  two  misunderstandings  which  may 
arise,  or  have  arisen. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  degree  of  '  uniqueness  ' 
which  I  have  above  attributed  to  Christianity,  drives 
a  wedge  between  the  Old  Covenant  and  the  New,  assumes 
a  gulf  or  discontinuity  between  them  which  is  inherently 
improbable.  To  this  I  would  reply  that  I  postulate,  not 
discontinuity,  but  only  such  a  difference  between  the  two 
stages  of  God's  revelation  as  is  involved  in  the  conception 
of  a  real  Incarnation  of  God  intervening  between  them. 
All  else  that  was  permanently  true  or  valuable  in  Judaism 
ran  continuously  on  into  Christianity,  only  transfigured 
and  raised  to  its  highest  possible  power  by  its  assumption 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  69 

into  the  mystical  life  which  the  Redeemer  lives  in  His 
Church,  the  '  extension '  of  His  Incarnation.  There 
seems  no  reason,  therefore,  in  the  nature  of  things,  why 
the  guidance  of  the  Spirit,  which  had  bestowed  upon  the 
Jewish  Church  a  vague  and  (so  to  speak)  formless  appre- 
hension of  some  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  Essence, 
should  not  have  been,  at  Pentecost,  enormously  increased 
and  intensified,  in  such  a  way  as  to  guide  the  Christian 
Church  into  '  all  truth  ' — all  truth,  that  is,  which  the 
human  mind  is  capable  of  receiving  and  assimilating  :  nor 
do  I  see  any  reason  why  God  should  not  have  made  pro- 
vision that  the  increased  range  of  man's  knowledge  about 
Himself  should  be  accompanied  by  an  increase  of  certainty 
and  precision  in  the  intellectual  apprehension  and  formu- 
lation of  that  knowledge.  Nor,  to  my  mind,  would  this 
involve  any  unnatural  dislocation  or  inconcinnity  in  the 
smooth  and  continuous  working  of  the  Divine  oiKoyofxia. 
Perhaps  you  will  permit  me  a  somewhat  commonplace 
illustration.  There  is  no  substantial  discontinuity  between 
the  flame  of  a  gas-jet  turned  low,  so  that  only  a  blue  spark 
hovers  above  the  burner,  and  the  contents  of  the  room 
are  only  dimly  and  in  general  outline  discernible,  and  the 
same  flame  turned  high,  so  that  the  room  is  flooded  with 
light,  and  its  contents  are  clearly  seen. 

It  is  possible,  further,  that  I  may  still  be  supposed  to 
conceive  the  guidance  exercised  by  the  Holy  Spirit  over 
the  Church  in  a  coarsely  mechanistic  manner  :  that  my 
references  to  the  authority  of  Ecumenical  Councils  may 
expose  me  to  the  suspicion  of  believing  in  that  conception 
of  the  inspiration  of  ecclesiastical  authority  which  is 
satirized  in  the  somewhat  blasphemous  mot  quoted  by 
Sarpi  with  reference  to  the  Council  of  Trent  (a  mot  which 
reverence  forbids  me  to  repeat).  It  is  therefore  worth 
while  observing  that,  on  the  view  that  I  am  advocating, 
it  is  the  Church  as  a  whole,  the  '  Spirit-bearing  body  '  as 
a  whole,  which  is  the  ultimate  authority.  The  ecumeni- 
city of  Ecumenical  Councils  resides  precisely  in  this,  that 


70     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

theic  formulations  were  subsequently  accepted  by  the 
whole  Church.  For  instance,  the  first  Council  of  Con- 
stantinople, which  taught  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  a 
distinct  Hypostasis  within  the  Godhead,  and  not  a  mere 
impersonal  effluence  from  it,  could  not  and  did  not, 
whilst  it  was  sitting,  claim  to  be  Ecumenical  in  the  sense 
of  being  genuinely  representative,  in  regard  to  its  mem- 
bership, of  the  whole  Church  :  inasmuch  as  none  but 
Eastern  bishops  attended  it.  It  became  Ecumenical 
through  the  universal  acceptance  of  its  decrees  by  the 
Christian  society  in  all  its  parts.  There  is,  therefore,  no 
idea  of  a  supernaturally-possessed  body  of  men,  or  a 
majority  of  them,  miraculously  hitting  off  the  ideal 
expression  of  the  truth  as  it  were  in  a  moment  ;  there  is 
no  Christian  analogue  to  the  Rabbinical  figment  of  the 
Bath  Qol.  The  Catholic  hypothesis  merely  asserts  that 
when  rival  thinkers  or  schools  of  thinkers  (or,  in  some 
cases,  rival  Councils)  had,  after  years  of  debate,  worked 
out  different  forms  for  the  embodiment  of  the  same 
content,  the  vast  inarticulate  consciousness  of  the  Uni- 
versal Church  was  slowly  and  gradually  led,  by  the  view- 
less influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  dwelling  within  it,  to 
adopt  that  particular  form  which  God  knew  to  be,  for 
finite  intellects,  the  best  preservative  of  the  content  in 
question.^  There  is  a  sentence  on  p.  49  of  your  letter, 
which ,  if  I  were  allowed  to  apply  it  to  all  the  clauses  of  the 
Creeds,  '  historical '  as  well  as  '  ontological ',  and  to  read 
it  with  my  own  emphasis  attached  to  particular  words, 
would  represent  very  fairly  what  I  mean.  '  I  fully  be- 
lieve ',  you  say,  '  that,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  ultimate 

1  I  may  say  at  this  point  that  I  quite  agree  with  your  view,  expressed 
on  p.  47,  that  since  the  Reformation  (and  indeed  since  the  Great 
Schism  of  1054),  owing  to  the  loss  of  external  unity,  the  normal  action 
of  the  Church  must  be  regarded  as  '  suspended,  untU  the  conditions 
are  once  more  favourable '.  But  this  fact  does  not  seem  to  me,  in  itself, 
to  cast  any  doubt  upon  the  conclusions  at  which  the  Church  arrived 
before  1054,  when  it  was  able  to  act  normally. 


Mr.  N.  P,  Williams  II  71 

formulations  accepted  by  the  Church  were  always  in  the 
right  direction.  It  is  just  in  this  that  I  am  prepared  to 
see  Divine  guidance  and  overruling.  There  was,  if  we 
may  say  so,  an  instinct  at  work  in  the  Church  which  out  of 
seemingly  unpromising  conditions  and  by  seemingly  un- 
promising methods  was  found  to  lead  in  the  end  to  what 
we  can  recognize  as  right  decisions.'  Compare  this  with 
the  sentence  which  I  have  written  above — '  I  believe  that 
though  the  Divine  control  was  far  from  being  "  complete  " 
.  .  .  there  was,  nevertheless,  just  enough  of  it  to  preserve 
the  Christian  Church  from  laying  down  as  of  faith  pro- 
positions which  were  definitely  false  or  misleading.'  I  do 
not  think  it  is  too  much  to  claim  that  the  difference 
between  the  conceptions  of  '  Divine  guidance  '  expressed 
in  these  two  sentences  is  infinitesimal.  The  real  question 
at  issue  is  whether  this  '  Divine  guidance  '  covers  both  the 
'  historical '  and  the  '  ontological  '  elements  in  traditional 
orthodoxy  :   and  of  this,  more  presently. 

V 

Your  fourth  criticism  is  expressed  in  the  following 
words — '  (The  picture  that  you  draw  of  the  present 
position  of  Christian  doctrine)  as  a  picture,  is  beautiful  and 
attractive.  But  my  feeUng  about  it  is  that  it  is  all  in  the 
air  ;  it  is  out  of  touch  with  the  work-a-day  world  ;  it  is 
a  work  of  the  imagination,  an  "  unsubstantial  pageant  ", 
neither  verified  nor  capable  of  verification.'  I  will  reply 
as  briefly  as  possible. 

To  the  objection  that  my  view  is  out  of  touch  with  the 
work-a-day  world  it  should  be  sufficient  to  reply  that  it 
is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  held  by  two -thirds  of  Christendom 
at  the  present  day.  You  have  accused  me  above  of  main- 
taining a  '  highly  paradoxical  and  precarious  position  '  in 
pointing  out,  what  is  a  commonplace  of  formal  logic,  that 
it  is  possible  to  educe  true  conclusions  from  false  premisses  } 

^  I  had  not  the  smallest  idea  of  '  erecting  these  exceptional  cases  into 
a  law '  (p.  44).     It  would  indeed  be  sheer  unreason  to  contend  that 


72     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 


I  can  only  say  that  in  my  opinion  it  is  a  far  more  startling 
paradox  to  contend  that  the  Catholic  view,  which  for 
centuries  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  stay  and  consolation 
of  countless  millions  of  every  age,  social  class,  colour,  race, 
and  language,  is  '  out  of  touch  ' — and  that  a  view  which 
is  comparatively  modern,  and  only  held  by  scholars  and 
persons  of  trained  intellect,  is  '  in  touch  ' — with  '  the 
work-a-day  world '.  On  this  point  I  am  content  to  let  the 
facts  speak  for  themselves. 

As  for  the  allegation  that  the  Catholic  hypothesis  is 
*  neither  verified  nor  capable  of  verification  ',  I  am  quite 
willing  to  admit  that  complete  intellectual  verification  is  as 
little  to  be  looked  for  in  the  case  of  CathoKcism  in  par- 
ticular, as  it  is  in  the  case  of  Christianity  or  of  Theism 
in  general.  I  think,  indeed,  that  this  hypothesis  can 
be  very  largely  verified,  even  intellectually  ;  I  should 
certainly  claim  that  it  fits  the  facts  of  history  at  least  as 
closely  and  satisfactorily  as,  let  us  say,  Harnack's  '  secu- 
larization-hjrpothesis '.  But,  in  the  case  of  reUgious 
doctrines,  the  only  kind  of  '  verification  '  which  can  a£Eord 
convincing  proof,  or  proof  which  will  be  convincing  to  the 
individual,  is  practical  verification  within  the  sphere  of 
the  moral  and  religious  fife.  I  will  not  pursue  this  subject 
at  length,  because  it  is  of  such  a  profound  and  intimate 
nature  :  but  those  who  have  striven  to  five  the  Christian 
life  on  the  lines  which  are  common  to  the  historic  Churches 
of  East  and  West,  persevering  in  the  use  of  penance  and 

'  all  faulty  processes  of  reasoning  result  in  true  conclusions ',  and 
any  one  who  acted  on  this  principle  would,  no  doubt,  soon  find  himself 
placed  under  restraint.  I  merely  wished  to  point  out  the  obvious  fact 
that  '  some  faulty  processes  have  resulted  in  true  conclusions ',  and  to 
suggest  that,  in  consequence,  the  conclusions  reached  by  the  primitive 
Fathers  cannot  be  condemned  off-hand  merely  because  some  of  their 
premisses  were  erroneous.  Of  course,  I  did  not  suppose  that  this  con- 
tention established  the  truth  of  their  conclusions  :  I  relied  for  that  upon 
the  assumption,  which  you  afterw^ards  proceed  to  discuss,  of  the  '  im- 
manent personal  presence  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Catholic 
Church'. 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  78 

communion,  and  endeavouring  to  make  the  '  Communion 
of  Saints  '  a  living  reality  to  themselves,  will  know  what 
I  mean. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  cogency  of  this  interior  verifica- 
tion, for  those  who  have  experienced  it,  is  disturbed  by 
the  fact  that  grace  can  be  and  is  given  apart  from  the 
historic  Church  and  Sacraments  :  there  is  the  principle 
Deus  non  alUgatur  mediis,  sed  homo,  to  cover  this  fact. 
It  may  be  objected  ^  that  such  an  experiential  verification 
can  be  claimed  with  as  much  justice  by  those  who  stand 
apart,  at  varying  degrees  of  distance,  from  the  great 
central  structure  of  historic  and  sacramental  Christianity  : 
that  the  Quaker  and  the  Salvationist  can  claim  that  their 
respective  theological  positions  are  guaranteed  by  their 
extra-  or  non-sacramental  experience.  In  a  sense,  I 
should  agree  with  this  contention  :  that  is,  I  should  quite 
admit  that  the  Salvationist  can  legitimately  point  to  his 
spiritual  experience  as  a  solid  justification  of  his  positive 
behefs,  in  the  existence  of  God,  the  atoning  efficacy  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  and  so  on  :  but  I  should  dispute  his  right 
to  use  it  as  evidence  for  purely  negative  beliefs,  as  that 
there  is  no  visible  Church,  or  that  the  sacraments  are  not 
the  normally  necessary  means  of  grace.  The  fact  of  his 
receiving  grace  is  indisputable  :  but  he  cannot  prove  that 
this  fact  is  not  just  as  explicable  on  the  basis  of  Deus  non 
alUgatur  mediis  as  on  the  basis  of  nulla  sunt  media  ordi- 
Tuiria.^  The  Salvationist's  experience  is  good  evidence, 
so  far  as  it  goes  (and  so,  for  that  matter,  is  the  experience 
of  the  non-Christian  Theist,  so  far  as  it  goes)  :  but  I 
venture  to  submit  that  the  Catholic's  experience,  which 
goes  a  long  step  further,  is  equally  good  evidence  all 
the  way. 

I  am  thus  prepared  to  admit  that  the  CathoUc  system 
begins  with   experience  and  ends  with  experience  :    it 

1  As,  for  instance,  by  Prof.  Kirsopp  Lake  in  The  Earlier  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul. 

'  This  phrase  is  a  pseudo-scholastic  coinage  of  my  own. 


74     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

rests,  in  the  first  instance,  upon  '  intuition  ',  or  the  '  gift 
of  Faith  ',  and  is  verified  by  the  consciousness  of  the 
reception  of  grace.  But,  again,  it  seems  to  me  that  this 
must  necessarily  be  true  of  all  Christianity,  in  whatever 
form  it  be  held,  and  indeed  of  all  Rehgion  as  such.  If 
a  religion  could  be  discovered  which  could  be  fortified, 
so  to  speak,  round  the  whole  of  its  periphery  with  an 
absolutely  complete  system  of  objective  and  external 
guarantees,  it  would  not  be  a  religion,  but  a  science. 


VI 

It  is  not  unfair,  I  think,  to  claim  that  the  form  which 
these  criticisms  of  yours  have  taken,  together  with  the 
replies  which  I  have  made  to  them,  illustrates  in  various 
ways  and  from  various  points  of  view  the  truth  of  what 
I  said  in  my  first  letter,  and  repeated  at  the  beginning 
of  this,  namely,  that  the  difference  between  us  is  one  of 
degree,  and  not  of  kind.  It  aU  turns  upon  the  degree  of 
closeness  and  exactness  with  which  we  conceive  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  have  superintended  the  development  of  doctrine 
during  the  second  stage  of  Revelation,  that  which  (roughly 
speaking)  began  with  Pentecost.  And  that  again  (I  sug- 
gested) is  determined  by  the  degree  of  intensity  in  which 
we  possess  a  certain  fundamental  intuition — the  sense  of 
the  Spirit  in  the  Church.  I  suppose  that  the  conservative 
Modernist  would  say,  from  his  point  of  view,  that  I  had 
this  sense  in  a  somewhat  exaggerated  form — that  I 
suffered,  so  to  speak,  from  hyperaesthesia  ;  and  I  suppose 
I  should  have  to  say,  from  my  point  of  view,  that  he 
possessed  it  in  a  sHghtly  atrophied  form — ^though  I  should 
desire  to  guard  myself,  in  the  most  expHcit  and  emphatic 
manner  possible,  against  the  suspicion  of  even  appearing 
to  claim  any  spiritual  or  moral  superiority  on  this  ground. 
If  the  Traditionahst  believes  himseK  to  have  a  somewhat 
clearer  view  of  Divine  truth  than  his  Modernist  brother, 
he  would  attribute  his  possession  of  this  privilege  solely 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  75 

to  the  mysterious  predestination  of  God — ov  tov  OiXopro^, 
ovSe  TOV  Tpeyovro^,  dWa  rod  kXeovvros  deov — and  would 
never  dream  of  claiming  credit  for  himself  or  assuming 
an  attitude  of  Pharisaical  self-satisfaction. 

However,  this  slight  difference  of  intuition  or  assump- 
tion would  not  matter,  if  the  Creeds  and  other  utterances 
of  Ecumenical  authority  contained  none  but  propositions 
of  the  kind  which  you  have  designated  metaphysical — ■ 
that  is,  dealing  with  the  being  and  attributes  of  God  as 
He  is  in  Himself.  You  say  (p.  42)  '  Where  we  propound 
to  ourselves  the  same  questions  that  are  raised  by  the 
Creeds,  especially  so  far  as  these  questions  relate  to  the 
metaphysical  nature  of  the  Godhead,  my  own  belief  is  that 
they  are  rightly  answered  in  the  words  of  the  Creeds  '  ; 
and,  if  this  language  had  been  meant  to  apply  to  all  the 
propositions  in  the  Creeds,  I  should  ask  no  more.  If 
a  man  agrees  with  me  in  accepting  all  the  deliveries  of 
Ecumenical  authority,  I  at  least  am  not  disposed  (for 
practical  purposes)  to  catechize  him  too  closely  as  to  his 
views  about  the  inmost  nature  of  that  authority.  If  he 
believes  that  the  Church  has  not  actually  erred,  I  should 
naturally  refrain  from  raising  the  abstract  question 
whether  it  might  conceivably  have  erred.  But  I  am 
afraid  that  this  is  not  quite  the  case  in  the  present  instance. 
You  draw  a  distinction  between  the  metaphysical  and  the 
historical  clauses  of  the  Creeds — between  those  statements 
which  relate  to  the  interior  hfe  of  the  Godhead  as  it  is  in 
itself,  and  those  which  are  concerned  with  the  historical 
incarnate  life  of  the  Son  of  God  upon  earth.  (I  quite 
accept  this  distinction,  which  I  had  already  drawn  myself 
in  thought.  I  refrained,  indeed,  from  raising  it  in  my 
first  letter,  in  order  to  avoid  what  then  seemed  an  unneces- 
sary complication  of  the  issue  :  but  it  is  no  longer  possible 
to  avoid  its  consideration,  as  our  remaining  differences 
hinge  largely  upon  it.)  And  I  understand  you  to  contend 
that,  whilst  the  degree  of  Divine  guidance  which  you  are 
willing  to  assume  is  sufficient  to  guarantee  the  (relative) 


! 


76     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

truth  of,  or  at  any  rate  to  lend  a  high  degree  of  probability 
to,  the  '  metaphysical '  propositions  of  the  Creeds,  it  is 
not  sufficient  to  afford  a  similar  assurance  in  the  case  of 
some  of  the  '  historical '  propositions,  if  these  are  taken  in 
their  traditional  sense,  i.e.  in  that  sense  which  has  been 
attributed  to  them  by  the  '  Church  of  the  past '.  These 
propositions  are,  I  suppose,  those  which  affirm  the  Virginal 
Conception  and  Birth  of  Christ,  the  Descensus  ad  inferos^ 
the  Resurrection,  and  the  Ascension.  You  say  that '  it  is 
impossible  that  the  dead  hand  of  bygone  generations 
should  foreclose  historical  discussion  at  the  present  day'. 
Now,  before  going  any  further,  I  feel  compelled  to 
dispute  the  cogency  of  the  argument  which  you  found 
upon  the  distinction  between  '  metaphysical '  and  '  his- 
torical '  propositions.  I  see  no  reason  in  the  nature  of 
things  why  the  Church  should  not  have  been  Divinely 
guided  as  well  in  the  selection  of  '  historical '  as  in  that 
of  '  metaphysical  '  propositions  for  embodiment  in  the 
Creeds.  The  old  Greek  philosopher  says  jestingly  '  if  you 
beheve  the  poets  when  they  tell  you  of  the  existence  of  the 
Gods,  you  must  believe  the  poets  when  they  tell  you  what 
the  Gods  are  Kke '.  In  other  words,  it  would  seem  prima 
facie  that  if  you  are  going  to  trust  rehgious  authority 
at  all,  you  must  trust  it  all  in  all,  as  well  in  the  sphere 
of  history  as  in  that  of  metaphysics — unless  and  until  it 
makes  some  pronouncement  which  can  be  certainly 
shown  to  be  untrue  :  in  which  case  its  supernatural  claims 
are  at  once  stripped  from  it,  and  it  stands  revealed  as 
a  pretence  and  a  fraud.  I  know  that  you  do  not  like  the 
principle  of  '  all  or  nothing  '  as  applied  to  matters  of 
religious  behef,  and  I  am  quite  willing  to  confess  that  it 
has  in  the  past  been  apphed  in  a  highly  unwise  and  regret- 
table manner  to  matters  which  fall  far  short  of  funda- 
mental importance — as,  for  instance,  to  the  question  of 
the  truth  of  certain  historical  statements  in  the  Old 
Testament :  but  when  we  come  down  to  what  is  funda- 
mental in  the  Christian  Revelation  (if  we  can  ascertain 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  77 

it),  we  cannot  assert  the  right  to  pick  and  choose  without 
implicitly  denying  the  idea  of  '  Revelation  '  altogether. 
At  any  rate,  my  view  of  the  authority  of  the  Church 
(which,  as  I  ventured  to  suggest  just  now,  the  criticisms 
contained  in  your  last  letter  do  not  seem  to  me  to  have 
upset)  forbids  me  to  label  some  elements  in  the  orthodox 
tradition  '  certainly  true  '  and  others  '  doubtful ',  or  '  less 
\  certainly  true  '  ;  and  I  should  have  thought  that  your 
vaguer,  or  less  rigid,  view  would  have  appKed  equally  to 
both  categories  of  propositions.  Even  assuming  your 
general  position,  I  do  not  see  what  a  priori  ground  there 
is  for  asserting  that  the  distinction  in  respect  to  subject- 
matter  (between  '  metaphysical '  and  '  historical '  pro- 
positions) necessarily  involves  a  distinction  in  respect  to 
certainty  or  vaHdity.  Why  should  we  suppose  that  an 
'  historical '  proposition  is  more  Kkely  in  the  nature  of 
things  to  be  untrue  than  a  '  metaphysical '  proposition  ? 
Speaking  of  the  '  metaphysical '  clauses,  you  say  '  I  fully 
beheve  that  the  ultimate  formulations  accepted  by  the 
Church  were  always  in  the  right  direction  ' — '  I  do  not 
think  there  is  one  to  which  I  should  wish  to  offer  anything 
that  is  of  the  nature  of  contradiction  ' — and  so  on  ;  and, 
so  far  as  a  priori  considerations  are  concerned,  I  do  not 
at  present  see  why  you  should  not  (quite  consistently  with 
your  own  assumptions)  repose  in  this  position  with  regard 
to  the '  historical '  clauses  of  the  Creeds. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  forget  that  (whatever  liberty  the 
Continental  Modernist  may  claim  for  himself  in  this 
matter)  you  at  least  only  desire  freedom  '  to  abstain  from 
full  affirmation  of  '  the  clauses  in  question,  not  freedom  to 
deny  them,  nor  yet  freedom  to  abstain  altogether  from 
any  degree  of  affirmation  of  them.  I  should  like  to  say 
that  this  position  (although  I  do  not  share  it)  seems  to  me 
a  perfectly  clear  and  inteUigible  one,  and  I  should  not  at 
all  agree  with  those  who  find  it  over-subtle  or  hairsplitting. 
It  seems,  so  far  as  I  can  gather,  that  it  depends  upon  the 
apphcation  of  the  distinction  between  form  and  content 


78     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

which  we  have  agreed  to  draw  in  respect  of  the  '  meta- 
physical '  clauses,  to  the  historical  clauses  of  the  Creeds. 
For  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  clauses  '  Conceived  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary '  I  understand  you 
to  maintain  that  the  content  consists  in  the  general  idea 
of  a  Supernatural  Birth,  a  Birth  which  was  more  com- 
pletely operated,  permeated,  and  sanctified  by  the 
heavenly  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit  than  any  other 
birth  before  or  since :  and  that  the /orm  which  has  hitherto 
been  worn  by  this  idea  is  that  of  a  Birth  in  which  a  human 
father  had  no  share  whatever.  I  suppose  that  you  would 
draw  a  similar  distinction  in  the  case  of  the  other  three 
propositions  enumerated  above,  viz.  the  Descensus  ad 
inferos,  the  Resurrection,  and  the  Ascension.  And  in  all 
four  cases,  I  gather,  you  would  claim,  whilst  holding  fast 
to  what  you  have  defined  as  the  content,  liberty  to  relax 
your  grip  upon  the  form,  to  the  extent,  at  any  rate,  of 
*  abstaining  from  full  affirmation '. 

Perhaps  I  had  better  say  at  this  point  that  in  what 
follows  I  shall  be  no  longer  engaged  in  defending  my  own 
position — (that  was  stated  in  my  first  letter,  and  based 
upon  '  intuition ' :  and,  as  I  have  said,  it  seems  to  me,  on 
the  whole  not  to  have  been  affected  by  the  fire  of  criticism 
which  you  have  directed  upon  it) — I  propose  in  the  rest 
of  this  paper  to  devote  myself  to  attacking  (of  course  in 
a  genial  spirit)  your  position. 

I  should  in  the  first  place  challenge  the  legitimacy  of 
the  use  which  you  make  of  the  distinction  between  form 
and  content  in  regard  to  the  '  historical '  clauses.  In  the 
case  of  the  '  metaphysical  '  clauses,  form  and  content 
are  not  merely  distinguishable,  but,  so  to  speak,  detach- 
able. For  instance,  the  content  of  the  Homoousion 
clause — the  general  idea  of  Christ's  Deity  and  Divine 
Sonship — was  for  a  long  time  held  in  and  by  the  Church 
apart  from  the  actual  thought-form  of  '  Identity  of 
Substance  '  or  '  Consubstantiality  '.  The  content  and 
the  form  were  not,  in  the  beginning,  indissolubly  soldered 


Mr.  N.  P,  Williams  II  79 

together  :    and  I  can  quite  well  imagine  a  modern  theo- 
logian claiming  to  detach  the  content  from  the  form  in 
which  it  has  come  down  to  us,  and  to  hold  the  former 
whilst  dropping,  or  relaxing  his  grip  upon,  the  latter  : 
and  I  should  regard  such  a  position  as  quite  intelligible 
(though  not,  of  course,  consistent  with  perfect  loyalty 
to  Catholic    teaching).     But  in   the  case  of  historical 
propositions  in  general — and,  therefore,  of  the  historical 
clauses  of  the  Creeds  in  particular — I  should  contend 
that  form  and  content  are  distinguishable  only,  and  not 
detachable — like    the    concave    and    convex    aspects    of 
a  mathematical   curve.     Take   such  an  historical  pro- 
position   as    the    following — '  Charlotte  Corday  killed 
Marat.'     Obviously    here    form    and   content    exactly 
coincide,  as  in  the  case  of  a  musical  melody.    They  are 
certainly  not  detachable,  and  I  am  inclined  to  doubt 
whether  they  are  really  distinguishable.    It  follows,  then, 
that  an  historical  proposition  must  be  either  taken  or  left 
— and  by  '  taken  '  I  mean  accepted,  or  assented  to  ;  if 
it  is  only  partially  affirmed,  it  is  really  '  left  '.    Or,  again, 
if  only  a  modified  form  of  it  is  accepted,  it  is  really  '  left ' ; 
e.  g,  if  an  historian  were  to  tell  me  that  he  accepted  the 
proposition  instanced  above  in  the  sense  that  '  Charlotte 
Corday  was  indirectly  instrumental  in  procuring  Marat's 
death  ',  and  still  more  if  he  were  to  interpret  it  as  merely 
meaning  that  in  the  long  run  the  spirit  of  freedom  triumphs 
over  tyranny,  I  should  have  to  reply  that  he  was  not 
really  accepting,  but  merely  substituting  another  state- 
ment for,  the  statement  proposed  for  his  acceptance. 
I  am  therefore  constrained  to  contend  that  the  historical 
clauses  of  the  Creeds  cannot  be  placed  in  the  same  cate- 
gory as  the  metaphysical  clauses  :  the  distinction  between 
form  and  content  cannot  usefully  be  applied  to  them  : 
they  are  either  eternally  true,  and  to  be  taken,  or  eternally 
false,  and  to  be  left.     There  is  no  question  of  relative 
truth,  of  the  Holy  Spirit  gently  steering  the  tumultuous 
debates  of  contending  theologians  so  as  at  last  to  educe 


I 


80     Form  and  Cofitent  in  Christian  Tradition 

the  perfect  form  for  the  embodiment  of  a  hitherto  un- 
dejfined  content :  the  conception  of  a  gradual  fixation 
of  what  was  Once  fluid,  a  progressive  definition  of  what 
was  once  vague,  cannot  be  applied  to  statements  of 
plain  historical  fact,  or  what  is  alleged  to  be  historical 
fact.  The  '  historical '  clauses  of  the  Creeds — if  they 
are  true — must  thus  represent  an  element  of  permanence, 
of  immobility,  of  absence  of  development,  existing  side 
by  side  with  the  element  of  growth  and  efflorescence 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  '  metaphysical '  clauses. 
They  are  the  solid,  unchanging  rock,  above  which  the 
grove  of  '  metaphysical '  dogmas  grows  and  flourishes. 

I  do  not,  therefore,  object  to  your  describing  the  kind 
of  continuity  and  identity,  which  I  ascribe  to  the  content 
of  the  '  historical '  clauses,  as  a  '  mechanical '  identity, 
provided  that  the  word  '  mechanical '  is  not  used  as 
a  question-begging  epithet — i.e.  provided  that  it  is  not 
assumed  that  what  is  '  mechanical '  is  somehow  neces- 
sarily wrong  or  untrue.  Nor  have  I  any  wish  to  quarrel 
with  your  simile  of  coins  put  into  a  box  and  taken  out, 
absolutely  unchanged,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years  : 
I  think  it  expresses  quite  admirably  the  kind  of  immobile 
sameness,  of  unchanging  identity,  which  must  necessarily 
be  attributed  to  all  true  statements  of  historical  fact, 
whether  such  statements  occur  in  the  Creeds  or  not. 

All  this  may  appear,  at  first  sight,  lamentably  hard, 
and  narrow,  and  rigid.  But  I  would  plead  that  after 
all  it  is  simply  common  sense.  An  event  happens  :  it 
happens  in  one  way,  and  one  only  :  having  happened, 
it  becomes  part  of  the  irrevocable  past,  and  cannot  be 
undone  or  altered  or  modified,  even  though  some  or 
many  of  its  more  direct  consequences  may  be  counter- 
acted by  human  agency.  A  past  event  cannot  grow,  or 
develop,  or  evolve. 

fiovov  yap  avrov  koI  Oebs  (rT€picrK€TaL, 
dyej/ijTa  ttoi^Iv  acrcr'  &v  fj  TreTrpay/xeua. 

(Agathon,  ap.  Arist.  Eth.  Nic.  vi.  2.  6.) 


I 


3Ir.  N.  P.  Williams  II  81 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  agree  with  the  poet's  limita- 
tions of  the  power  of  God  in  this  regard  ;  but  certainly 
man  cannot  make  that  not  to  have  happened  which 
once  has  happened.  No  amount  of  research,  of  improve- 
ment of  historical  methods,  of  sharpening  of  analytic 
acumen,  can  change  the  past  ;  we  may  discover  that 
a  historical  proposition  which  we  thought  to  be  true  was 
in  reality  false,  but  we  cannot  tnake  a  proposition  which 
is  objectively  true  to  be  false,  or  vice  versa.  Consequently, 
true  propositions  about  the  past  must  necessarily  be 
immobile  and  unchanging  :  the  proposition,  '  Julius 
Caesar  was  murdered  by  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  their 
friends,'  was  as  true  on  March  16,  44  b.  c.  as  it  is  to-day, 
November  20,  A.  d.  1915;  nor  has  there  been  a  single 
moment  of  time  between  these  two  points  when  it  has 
not  been  true.  The  lapse  of  time  has  neither  added  to, 
nor  taken  away  from,  its  unchanging  truth  :  nor  will  it 
be  any  less,  or  any  more,  true  than  it  is  to-day  on 
November  20,  a.  d.  3015  or  5015.  Similarly  the  pro- 
position, 'Alexander  the  Great  was  the  son  of  Zeus  and 
Olympias,'  is,  and  always  has  been  from  the  first 
moment  of  its  formulation,  and  to  the  end  of  time  always 
will  be,  completely  false. 

Of  course,  a  great  many  philosophical  subtleties  have 
been  raised,  especially  in  recent  thought,  with  regard 
to  the  conception  of  '  fact  '  in  history  :  and  if  we  were 
engaged  in  a  merely  eristic  controversy,  you  could  doubt- 
less make  great  play  with  them.  But,  as  we  are  trjdng 
in  a  friendly  spirit  to  hammer  out  the  truth,  I  imagine 
that  you  will  raise  no  objection  to  my  use  of  the  words 
'  fact  ',  '  true  ',  and  '  false  '  in  the  plain  man's  sense, 
without  further  refinements  or  definitions. 

The  general  conclusion  which  seems  to  result  from 
the  foregoing  remarks  may  be  expressed  as  follows  :  the 
distinction  between  form  and  content  in  respect  of  the 
historical  clauses  is  a  distinction  in  thought  only  :  in 
reality,  the  form  and  the  content  of  these  clauses  are 

6 


82     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

inseparable  and  indeed  coincident.  They  are  therefore 
either  true  as  they  stand  or  false  as  they  stand :  and 
the  possibility  of  '  partial  affirmation '  seems  to  be 
excluded.  I  imagine  that  you  would  admit  this  in  the 
case  of  some  at  least  of  the  historical  clauses,  viz.  those 
which  affirm  that  our  Lord  died  by  crucifixion.  The 
clause,  '  Crucifixus  etiam  pro  nobis  :  sub  Pontio  Pilato 
passus  et  sepultus  est,'  contains  (should  we  not  both 
agree  ?)  a  plain  statement  of  (alleged)  historical  fact, 
which  must  either  be  taken  or  left.  There  is  no  possibility 
of  detaching  '  content  '  from  '  form  ',  and  holding  the 
one  whilst  dropping  the  other.  If  a  modern  theologian, 
as  the  result  of  his  anthropological  studies,  were  to 
conclude  that  the  whole  account  of  the  Crucifixion 
is  a  form  of  the  '  Rex  Nemorensis  '  story  and  that  the 
historical  Jesus  really  lived  to  a  ripe  old  age  and  died 
a  natural  death,  we  should  both  surely  say,  '  Well, 
that  is  your  opinion,  and  (as  this  is  a  free  country) 
you  have  a  perfect  right  to  hold  it  :  but  I  am  afraid 
that  I  cannot  admit  that  you  are  a  Christian,  or  that 
you  can  honestly  repeat  those  clauses  of  the  Creeds, 
which  affirm  the  Crucifixion,  in  any  sense  whatever.' 
To  adopt  any  other  attitude  would  be  to  dissolve  his- 
torical Christianity  into  a  pleasing  mirage,  a  picturesque 
illusion,  which  might  be  useful  as  a  poUtical  instrument 
for  keeping  the  masses  in  order,  but  could  never  command 
the  allegiance  of  educated  men. 


VII 

At  this  point  I  can  imagine  the  '  conservative  Moder- 
nist '  interjecting,  '  This  is  all  very  well :  but  it  is  aU 
written  from  an  a  priori  point  of  view,  which  may  well 
be  as  deceptive  as  many  a  priori  arguments  have  proved 
to  be  in  the  past.  Look  at  the  question  for  a  moment 
simply  in  the  light  of  the  present  religious  and  scientific 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  83 

situation.  On  the  one  hand,  we  can't  simply  affirm  the 
"  historical  ",  or  rather  the  "  historical  and  miraculous  " 
clauses,  simply  as  they  stand  :  "  imperious  necessity  ", 
or  "  what  some  of  us  think  imperious  necessity  "  (p.  8) 
compels  us  to  "  loosen  our  hold  upon  "  the  belief  in  the 
Virgin  Birth :  "we  are  convinced  that  bodies  "  in  New 
Testament  times  "  did  not  float  in  the  air  or  materialize 
and  dematerialize  at  will "  (p.  16),  and  therefore  we 
cannot  accept  the  ideas  of  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Ascension  in  exactly  that  form  in  which  the  early  Church 
held  them  :  we  do  not  imagine  that  the  spirits  of  the 
departed  are  confined  in  a  hollow  cavern  under  the 
ground,  and  we  cannot  therefore  take  the  Descensus  ad 
inferos  in  its  literal  sense.  On  the  one  hand,  we  neither 
can  nor  will  give  up  the  Christian  Faith  in  toto,  as  you 
would  apparently  have  us  do.  We  cannot  repudiate  our 
deepest  spiritual  experience  at  the  dictates  of  a  cold 
and  relentless  logic.  There  is  therefore  nothing  else  for 
it.  We  cannot  accept  these  things  in  their  literal  sense, 
but  we  must  accept  them  in  some  sense,  so  as  not  to 
forfeit  continuity  with  the  past.  We  are  compelled  by 
facts  to  find  some  way  of  holding  the  general  ideas 
which  lie  behind  these  clauses,  whilst  dropping  the 
literal  sense :  whether  the  distinction  of  "  form  "  and 
"  content  "  be  applicable  or  not,  some  such  distinction — 
the  exact  verbal  phrase  matters  comparatively  little — is 
a  practical  necessity.' 

VIII 

My  comments  upon  this  series  of  contentions  can, 
I  think,  be  compressed  within  a  brief  compass. 

(1)  You  wiU  notice  that  this  argument,  as  I  have 
ventured  to  formulate  it,  speaks  of  '  the  "  historical ", 
or  rather  the  "  historical  and  miraculous  ",  clauses  '.^    I  am 

^  Of  course,  '  miraculous  clauses '  is  a  compendious  expression  for 
'  clauses  which  affirm  miracles  '. 

02 


84     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

emboldened  to  express  the  contention  in  this  way  by  the 
fact  that  (as  I  have  assumed)  you  have  no  objection  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  Crucifixion-clause  (which  is  certainly 
'  historical '  and  not  '  metaphysical '),  in  its  plain  and 
literal  sense — in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was  accepted 
four  hundred,  eight  hundred,  sixteen  hundred  years  ago. 
But  if  I  am  right  in  this,  a  consequence  of  the  utmost 
importance  results.  It  would  seem  that  you  object  to 
these  four  clauses  precisely  because  they  affirm  miracles 
— ^not  because  they  are  affirmations  about  events  in  past 
time.  In  other  words,  your  attitude  on  this  subject  is 
determined  by  what  I  must  be  pardoned  for  calling  anti- 
miraculous  presuppositions.  And  at  this  point  I  fear  we 
decisively  part  company.  Take  such  a  sentence  as  this  : 
'  We  '  (that  is,  presumably,  '  conservative  Modernists  ') 
'  are  convinced  that  bodies  in  [New  Testament]  days  did 
not  float  in  the  air  or  materialize  and  dematerialize  at 
will.'  By  this  I  imagine  you  mean  that  you  are  con- 
vinced that  bodies  could  not  have  floated — ^that  it  was 
a  priori  and  inherently  impossible  for  them  to  float  in 
the  air  ;  for  it  would  be  obviously  impossible  to  demon- 
strate a  posteriori,  by  an  exhaustive  record  of  the  move- 
ments of  all  bodies  during  '  New  Testament  times  ',  that 
none  of  them  actually  did  perform  this  feat.  We  have 
therefore  to  do  with  an  a  priori  assumption,  of  the 
impossibility  of  bodies  floating  in  the  air.  Now  I  am 
afraid  I  must  say  (a)  that  I  am  equally  firmly  convinced 
that  God  has  the  power,  and  might  well  have  the  will,  to 
levitate  bodies,  whether  in  '  New  Testament  '  or  in  more 
recent  times  :  in  other  words,  that  I  do  believe  in  the 
abstract  possibility  of  such  levitations  :  and  (b)  that 
I  think  there  is  good  a  posteriori  evidence  for  the  occur- 
rence of  such  events,  not  only  in  the  first  century,  but 
in  every  succeeding  century  down  to  the  present  day. 
From  the  standpoint  of  my  assumptions,  I  see  no  reason 
to  doubt  the  reality  of  these  phenomena,  not  only  in 
the  case  of  New  Testament  personages,  but  also  in  those 


Mr.  N.  F.  Williams  II  85 

of  (e.  g.)  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  St.  Gerard  Majella. 
So  on  this  point  I  fear  that  we  are  hopelessly  divided. 
I  suppose  the  same  thing  applies  to  the  clauses  affirming 
the  Miraculous  Conception  and  Birth.  You  think  that 
'  imperious  necessity  '  forbids  you  to  accept  these  clauses 
in  their  plain  and  ordinary  sense — in  other  words,  you 
feel  it  to  be  a  priori  impossible,  or  at  any  rate  highly 
improbable,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  really  born  of  the 
body  of  a  maiden,  without  the  agency  of  a  human  father  : 
I  have  no  such  feeling,  and  am  absolutely  unconscious 
of  the  existence  of  any  such  '  imperious  necessity  '. 
For  me,  the  supposition  that  Joseph  was  somehow 
enabled  to  beget  a  child  who  was  the  Almighty  Word 
of  God  is  a  priori  just  as  improbable  as — I  am  inclined 
to  think,  rather  more  improbable  than — the  supposition 
that  the  Word  of  God  was  born  as  the  child  of  a  Virgin 
Mother.  And  here,  it  seems  to  me,  we  have  laid  bare 
another  difference  of  fundamental  assumption,  of  equal 
importance  with  that  which  I  have  already  discussed 
in  the  first  part  of  this  paper.  The  question  of  exact 
extent  to  which  the  Holy  Spirit  controlled  the  develop- 
ment of  ('  metaphysical ')  doctrine — and  the  question 
of  the  abstract  or  a  priori  possibility  of  certain  miracles 
— those  are  the  real  points  at  issue.  I  have  tried  to  set 
down  what  I  think  on  the  first  of  these  questions,  and 
I  will  not  go  over  that  ground  again.  As  for  the  second, 
I  do  not  wish  to  trench  upon  the  ground  of  your  dis- 
cussion with  the  Dean,  and  I  will  therefore  content 
myself  with  noting  its  existence  :  though  I  cannot 
forbear  from  observing  that  I  have  yet  to  learn  what 
logical  criterion  you  employ  for  discerning  miracles 
which  you  are  willing  to  accept  (miracles  which  you  call 
supra  naturam)  from  those  which  '  imperious  necessity  ' 
forbids  you  to  accept  (the  class  described  as  contra 
naturam).  Until  some  definition  of  the  terms  '  supra  \ 
'  contra  ',  and  '  natura  '  is  produced,  this  distinction  must 
inevitably  wear  some  appearance  of  arbitrariness.     But 


86     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

these  questions  belong  to  your  other  symposium,  and 
I  must  resist  the  temptation  to  pursue  them  further. 

(2)  '  But  ',  you  may  say,  '  what  about  the  other  argu- 
ment against  the  literal  acceptation  of  the  "  historical 
and  miraculous  clauses  " — the  contention  that  two  of 
them,  at  least,  presuppose  a  conception  of  the  physical 
universe  which  no  sane  man  of  modern  times  can  possibly 
hold  ?  Even  supposing  that  we  agree  to  differ  about 
the  abstract  possibility  of  such  events  as  the  Virginal 
Birth  and  the  Resurrection,  is  it  not  clear  that  the 
clause  affirming  the  Descensus  ad  inferos,  taken  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  was  understood  by  its  first  formulators, 
presupposes  the  idea  of  a  Sheol  or  Hades  locaUy  situated 
beneath  the  earth — and  that  the  clause  affirming  the 
Ascension,  in  the  mind  of  the  primitive  Church,  assumed 
the  idea  of  a  geographical  Heaven  locally  situated  above 
the  vault  of  the  sky  ?  If  this  is  so,  it  follows  that  even 
the  most  rigidly  orthodox  of  modern  theologians  does 
not,  and  cannot  (without  raising  doubts  as  to  his  sanity), 
accept  the  ideas  of  the  Descensus  and  the  Ascension  in 
the  same  sense  as  that  in  which  they  were  accepted  by 
the  primitive  Church  :  and  that  at  once  disposes  of  the 
"  unalterability  "  which  you  attribute  to  the  "  historical  " 
clauses  of  the  Creeds.  If  these  two  clauses  cannot  be 
accepted  in  the  same  sense  in  which  they  were  accepted 
fourteen  hundred  years  ago,  it  is  obvious  that  the  other 
two  need  not.  In  the  case  of  the  Descensus  and  the 
Ascension,  the  distinction  between  the  permanent  ideaf 
content  and  the  temporary  and  transitory  form  or  husk 
is  forced  upon  us  by  the  facts  ;  and  if  this  method  of 
interpretation  is  necessary  in  the  case  of  the  Descensus 
and  the  Ascension,  it  must  be  at  least  permissible  in  the 
case  of  the  Virginal  birth  and  of  the  Resurrection.' 

I  should  reply  to  this  contention  by  disputing  the 
truth  of  what  is  apparently  its  major  premiss — viz.  the 
assertion  that  the  primitive  Catholic  Church,  in  defining 
the  Descensus  and  Ascension  as  parts  of  the  essential 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  87 

Deposit  of  Faith,  meant  to  commit  itself,  and  did  commit 
itself,  to  the  hypotheses  of  a  local  and  geographical 
Heaven  and  Hades.  As  I  have  formulated  it,  this  asser- 
tion seems  to  me  both  unproved  and  unprovable.  It  is 
doubtless  quite  possible — it  may  be  probable — that  many, 
or  most,  primitive  Christians  did  as  a  matter  of  fact 
believe  in  the  geocentric  theory  of  the  universe,  and 
thought  of  Heaven  as  a  place  locally  situated  above 
their  heads,  and  Hades,  or  Limbo,  as  locally  situated 
beneath  their  feet  :  but  he  who  would  infer  from  this 
that  the  Church,  as  such,  believed  in  and  meant  to  teach 
a  geographical  Heaven  and  Hell  would  seem  to  lay 
himself  open  to  the  charge  of  committing  the  '  Fallacy 
of  Composition '  in  a  somewhat  obvious  form.  So  far 
as  I  can  see,  the  Chiu-ch,  as  distinct  from  individual 
Fathers  and  theologians,  always  meant  by  the  Descensus , 
Resurrection,  and  Ascension  exactly  what  an  educated 
modern  Catholic  means  by  them  now,  namely  (a)  that 
our  Lord,  during  the  time  which  elapsed  between  His 
Death  on  the  Cross  and  His  Resurrection,  vouchsafed 
to  dwell,  in  respect  of  His  Sacred  Humanity,  as  a  dis- 
embodied human  spirit,  in  the  '  place  ',  or  '  state  ',  or 
'  sphere  '  (human  language  is  necessarily  imperfect)  of 
departed  human  spirits  ;  that  His  human  experience 
included,  not  only  the  actual  suffering  of  death,  but  the 
experience  of  what  comes  after  death  : 

(6)  that  on  the  third  day  after  His  death.  He  returned 
in  His  disembodied  human  spirit,  from  the  world  of  the 
dead,  and  took  active  possession  once  more  of  the  Body 
which  had  meanwhile  been  lying  in  Joseph's  new  tomb  : 
that,  clothed  in  this  risen  Body,  He  sojourned  with  His 
Apostles,  and  instructed  them  in  the  things  pertaining 
to  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  and 

(c)  that  after  some  time  spent  in  this  mysterious  risen 
life,  He  entered  upon  a  condition  of  supreme  glory  and 
power  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  definitely  departed,  so 
far  as  His  visible  and  physical  presence  was  concerned. 


88     Form  and  Content  i7i  Christian  Tradition 

out  of  the  plane  of  the  material  world — a  spiritual  event 
which  was  sacramentally  imaged  forth  in  the  sphere  of 
sense  by  the  rising  of  His  body  in  the  air,  before  the 
eyes  of  His  adherents,  until  it  was  veiled  from  sight 
by  a  cloud.  No  one  will  contend  that  primitive  Christians 
meant  less  than  this  by  the  Descensus,  Resurrection, 
and  Ascension  :  and  I  know  of  no  evidence  that  the 
primitive  Church,  as  such,  meant  more. 


IX 

It  will  now  be  clear  what  reply  I  should  return  to  the 
argument  which  you  briefly  develop  on  pp.  49,  50.  You 
say,  'the  New  Testament  supphes  the  data  which  are 
worked  up  in  the  Creeds.  It  follows  that,  if  there  is 
a  progressive  reinterpretation  of  the  one,  the  same 
thing  must  hold  good  of  the  other.'  I  may  perhaps  be 
permitted  to  expand  this  argument  as  follows  :  '  The 
Creeds  are  summaries  of  doctrine  collected  out  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  have  no  independent  authority  of  their  own  ; 
any  reinterpretation  therefore  of  Scripture,  the  funda- 
mental authority,  must  involve  a  reinterpretation  of 
the  Creeds,  which  only  possess  a  derived  authority.' 
I  must  point  out  that  the  position  from  which  this 
argument  starts  is  one  which  those  who  think  with  me 
would  entirely  repudiate.  We  do  not  believe  that  the 
Creeds  are  merely  summaries  of,  and  dependent  upon, 
Scripture.  Historically,  the  old  Roman  baptismal  Creed 
(if  Dr.  Burn  is  to  be  trusted),  which  was  the  germ  of  our 
present  '  Apostles'  Creed  ',  is  actually  prior  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  New  Testament  Canon  ;  it  is  certain  at  any 
rate  that  the  baptismal  (and,  later,  the  conciUar)  Creeds, 
the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  three-fold 
ministry  developed  side  by  side  in  the  Church  from  the 
second  century  onwards,  and  I  need  not  remind  you 
that  the  New  Testament  Canon  was  not  definitively 
closed  until  the  Quini-Sextine  Council,  three  hundred 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  89 

years  after  the  formulation  of  the  Nicene  and  Niceno- 
Constantinopolitan  Symbols.  Creed,  Canon  of  Scriptm-e, 
hierarchy — these  (I  should  contend)  are  the  triple  out- 
growth of  the  fundamental  Deposit  of  Faith,  as  it 
developed  and  fructified  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  The  relation  between  Scripture  and  Creed 
is  thus  collateral,  not  one  of  direct  dependence  or  descent. 
Both  ahke  are  embodiments  of  the  Deposit  of  fundamental 
ideas  ;  the  one  pictures  the  Deposit  as  it  was  within 
forty  or  fifty  years  of  its  promulgation,  the  other  repre- 
sents it  as  it  was  after  three,  four,  and  five  centuries  of 
development  had  passed  over  it ;  the  one  contains  the 
Deposit,  still  fluid  and  undefined  on  its  '  metaphysical ' 
side,  in  a  collection  of  miscellaneous  documents,  no  one 
containing  the  whole,  but  each  illustrating  an  aspect,  or 
aspects — the  other  enshrines  it  in  clear-cut  and  finished 
phrases,  each  standing  for  a  technical  conceptual  form. 
The  New  Testament  is,  so  to  speak,  a  sort  of  composite 
photograph  of  the  Church  and  Faith — the  total  fact  of 
Christianity — as  they  were  in  their  infancy  :  and  we 
appeal  to  the  New  Testament  in  support  of  the  Creeds, 
not  to  prove  them  to  ourselves  (for  they  are  already 
sufficiently  guaranteed  by  our  fundamental  postulate  of 
the  infallibifity  of  the  Church)  but  to  prove  them  to 
outsiders.  The  New  Testament  (on  the  Catholic  view) 
is,  like  the  photograph  which  a  traveller  carries  in  his 
passport,  for  purposes  of  identification  ;  he  does  not 
carry  the  picture  of  himself  as  he  was  in  order  to  prove 
his  own  identity  to  himself,  but  in  order  to  prove  it  to 
others — customs  and  mifitary  officials.  So  the  Church, 
wherever  she  goes,  carries  about  with  her  the  New 
Testament,  in  order  to  prove  to  the  inquiring  outsider 
that  she,  the  Church  of  the  twentieth  century,  of  London, 
Paris,  and  New  York,  is,  in  essence,  the  same  Church, 
teaching  the  same  Faith,  as  the  Church  of  the  first 
century,  of  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  and  Ephesus. 

The   above   is   the   sketchiest   possible   treatment   of 


90     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

a  great  subject  ;  but  I  hope  enough  has  been  said  to 
indicate  the  main  reason  why  your  argument  based 
upon  the  alleged  dependence  of  the  Creeds  upon  Scrip- 
ture has  no  cogency  for  us.  Of  course,  I  should  not  in 
any  case  admit  that  it  is  necessary  to  impose  a  symbohc 
reinterpretation  upon  the  parts  of  Scripture  which  deal 
with  the  four  clauses  in  question.  As  I  have  said  else- 
where, I  cannot,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  rid 
myself  of  the  impression  that  all,  or  at  any  rate  most, 
of  the  destructive  criticism  of  these  passages  is,  if  closely 
and  candidly  analysed,  based  upon  a  priori  considera- 
tions ;  that  it  aU  starts,  in  reality  if  not  in  appearance, 
from  the  unexpressed  assumption  that  God  either  could 
not  or  would  not  have  worked  such  wonders  as  the 
Virginal  Conception  and  the  Resurrection  as  ordinarily 
understood.  I  trust  that  I  am  not  insensible  to  the 
effect  of  genuine  a  posteriori  evidence  :  and  if  at  any 
future  time  an  ostrakon  or  a  papjrrus  leaf  is  unearthed 
at  Nazareth  which  proves  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt 
that  Jesus  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  I  shall  be  prepared 
to  take  the  consequences.  I  shaU  frankly  admit  that 
CathoHc  Christianity  has  tumbled  down  with  a  crash, 
and  I  shall  proceed  to  look  round  for  some  other  theory 
of  the  universe.  But  I  have  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  no 
such  ostrakon  or  papyrus  ever  will  emerge. 


I  am  afraid  that  this  letter  has  grown  to  an  inordinate 
length.  But  you  will  readily  understand  that  loyalty 
to  my  own  position  forbade  me  to  leave  any  of  your 
points  unanswered.  And  a  satisfactory  commentary  must 
necessarily  be  rather  longer  than  the  text  upon  which  it  is 
based.  May  I,  in  conclusion,  sum  up  in  a  few  words  the 
stage  which  our  argument  seems  to  me  to  have  reached  ? 

1.   We  both  agree  to  distinguish  between  the  '  meta- 
physical '  and  the '  historical '  clauses  of  the  Creeds. 


I 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  91 

[By  '  Creeds  '  I  presume  we  both  mean  all  docu- 
ments possessing  Ecumenical  authority.] 

2.  In  respect  of  the  '  metaphysical '  clauses  we  agree 

to  distinguish  between  '  form  '  and  '  content '. 

3.  We  agree,  further,  that  the  '  content ',  at  least,  of 

these  clauses  is  per  se  unalterable,  inasmuch  as  it 
comes  to  us  by  Revelation  from  God. 

4.  As  to  the  '  form  ',  I  maintain  that  it  is  per  accidens 

unalterable  :  that,  although  a  particular  content 
may  not  always  have  been  associated  with  a  par- 
ticular form,  nevertheless,  now  that  the  association 
has  been  set  up  by  Church  authority,  it  is  not  open 
to  individual  behevers  to  dissolve  it  ; 

You,  on  the  other  hand,  are  not  prepared  to 
commit  yourself  even  to  a  per  accidens  unaltera- 
biUty  of  the  '  form  ' — but  you  say  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  you  have  no  desire  to  alter  it.  So  that 
on  this  point,  although  we  diverge  in  theory,  we 
appear  to  agree  in  practice. 

5.  When,  however,  we  come  to  consider  the  '  historical ' 

clauses,  a  much  greater  divergence  appears.  In 
respect  of  these  clauses,  you  maintain  that  '  form ' 
and  '  content '  are  not  only  distinguishable  but 
also  separable,  and  you  desire  to  retain  the  latter 
whilst  dropping,  or  not  firmly  holding,  the  former  ; 
/,  on  the  other  hand,  maintain  that  in  these 
clauses,  as  in  aU  (alleged)  plain  statements  of  his- 
torical fact,  '  form  '  and  '  content '  are  absolutely 
coincident,  and  that  these  clauses  must  therefore 
be  either  taken  or  left  :  and,  of  course,  my  funda- 
mental conviction  of  the  inerrancy  of  orthodox 
Christian  tradition  compels  me  to  *  take  '  them. 

6.  The  sUght  divergence  of  view  noted  under  (4)  and 

the  considerable  divergence  noted  under  (5),  are 
both  ultimately  traceable  to  a  difference  in  respect 
of  fundamental,  unproved,  and  unprovable  assump- 
tions or  axioms — ^to  a  difference  in  respect  of  apx"' 


II! 


92     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

dvaTToSeiKToi.  I  start  from  the  assumption  of 
the  infalhbihty  of  the  Church,  and  the  a  priori 
possibility  of  certain  miracles  :  you  start  from  the 
assumption  of  a  providential  guidance  of  the  Church 
which  does  not  amount  to  '  infallibility  ',  and  of 
the  a  priori  impossibility,  or  at  any  rate  extreme 
improbability,  of  these  miracles. 
7.  I  quite  admit  that  my  apxai  are  dvanoSeLKToi — 
reached  by  intuition  and  not  by  ratiocination :  but 
I  contend  {a)  that  any  dpxaC,  especially  in  rehgious 
matters,  must  necessarily  be  indemonstrable ; 
(&)  and  that  yours  are  just  as  much  so  as  mine. 

And  there,  for  the  present,  I  must  leave  it.  In  a  general 
sense,  I  still  think  that  the  difference  between  us  is  one 
of  degree,  not  of  kind.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  your  position 
is  not  exactly  a  '  New  Theology  '  ;  it  is  in  essence  the 
Old  Theology,  only  with  a  large  bite  taken  out  of  it. 
And  this  fact  seems  to  hold  out  considerable  hopes  of 
eventual  agreement,  if  not  between  j^ou  and  me,  at  any 
rate  between  those  who  think  with  you  and  those  who 
think  with  me.  But  it  has  another  consequence  which 
I  feel  bound  to  explain.  Precisely  because  it  is,  not  an 
entirely  new  position,  but  (as  I  should  hold)  a  somewhat 
mutilated  form  of  the  old  position,  it  seems  to  me  entirely 
destitute  of  the  '  enormous  strength  '  which  you  claim 
for  it  in  your  first  paper.  The  old  position  in  its  entirety, 
given  the  fundamental  assumption  of  the  '  infallibility  ' 
of  the  Church,  does  seem  to  me  to  be  '  enormously  strong  % 
and  to  be  proof  against  all  assaults  ;  and  such  an  entirely 
new  position  as  that  of  Professor  Troeltsch,  which  has 
little,  if  anything,  in  common  with  historical  Christianity, 
also  seems  to  me  to  be  '  enormously  strong  '.  If  I  may 
develop  the  metaphor  from  trench  warfare,  hinted  at 
in  your  first  paper  (p.  7),  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are 
two  possible  poUcies.  There  is  the  poHcy  of  doggedly 
holding  the  old  line  of  fortifications  as  it   has   always 


Mr.  N.  P.  Williams  II  93 

stood,  with  a  full  recognition  of  the  fact  that  a  breach 
in  the  line  means  encirclement  and  destruction  :  this 
is  the  policy  of  Traditionahsm.  There  is  also  the  poUcy 
of  evacuating  the  old  line  altogether,  and  withdrawing 
to  a  new  and  self-contained  set  of  trenches  further  up 
the  hill :  this  would  be  the  poUcy  of  Troeltsch.  But 
your  poUcy  appears  to  be  that  of  surrendering  three  or 
four  '  traverses  '  to  the  enemy,  and  yet  endeavouring 
to  hold  the  rest  of  the  hne — a  poUcy  which  exposes  you 
at  once  to  an  enfilading  fire,  and  (it  seems  to  me)  must 
sooner  or  later  involve  withdrawal  altogether,  or  else 
encirclement.  Of  course,  the  practical  course  which 
I  should  wish  to  advocate  would  be,  not  retirement  to 
the  new  hne,  but  reoccupation  of  the  temporarily 
abandoned  '  traverses  '. 

In  any  case,  permit  me  to  apologize  for  the  length  of 
this  letter,  and  beheve  me  to  be, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

N.  P.  WILLIAMS. 


DR.  SANDAY'S  REJOINDER. 

My  dear  Williams, 

I  am  glad  that  you  have  given  yourself  full  scope  for 
your  reply.  The  result,  I  must  needs  think,  will  be  equally 
satisfactory  on  both  sides  of  our  argument.  Those  who 
agree  with  you  will  see  in  your  letter  an  unusually  frank  and 
clear  statement  of  the  logical  structure  of  their  own  posi- 
tion ;  and  those  who  agree  with  me  will  have  the  advantage 
of  knowing,  better  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  than  they  have 
ever  known  before,precisely  what  they  have  to  reckon  with. 

You  have  been  specially  successful,  if  I  may  be  allowed 
to  say  so,  in  striking  a  balance  between  our  opposing 
views,  in  bringing  out  the  extent  of  our  agreement  and 
showing  precisely  at  what  point  we  begin  to  part  company. 
I  do  not  think  that  I  have  ever  been  engaged  in  a  contro- 
versy in  which  I  felt  this  so  strongly.  From  this  point 
of  view,  I  could  be  well  content  to  leave  our  discussion 
where  it  now  stands.  At  the  same  time  some  new  points 
have  come  up,  or  at  least  present  themselves  with  some- 
what greater  insistence.  These  points  perhaps  still  need 
a  little  further  elucidation,  which  I  will  now  try  to  offer. 
When  that  has  been  done — so  far  at  least  as  I  am  con- 
cerned— our  discussion  may  close. 


The  summaries  that  you  give  from  time  to  time  are 
all  that  I  could  wish.  It  has  only  sometimes  happened 
that,  in  paraphrasing  an  argument  or  opinion  of  mine, 
you  have  fallen  into  language  which  I  could  not  altogether 
endorse  ;  you  have  stated  your  point  in  a  way  that  is 
natural  to  yourself,  but  not  quite  equally  natural  to  me. 

This  has  happened  specially  in  contexts  in  which  you 
are  appeahng  to  authority.  Authority  plays  a  rather 
different  part  in  your  scheme  of  beliefs  and  in  mine.  For 
me,  the  ultimate  standard  of  judgement  is  what  I  conceive 


Dr,  Sunday  III  95 

to  be  truth.  Authority  has  its  weight ;  but  I  could  not 
accept  a  thing  purely  upon  authority,  if  I  did  not  also 
believe  it  to  be  true.  With  me,  the  idea  of  truth  stands 
behind  everything  else  ;  with  you,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
the  idea  of  authority  sometimes  takes  precedence  and 
becomes  a  ground  of  acceptance  independently  of  truth. 
I  might  perhaps  put  it  that,  with  you,  certain  propositions 
are  '  true  because  taught ',  whereas  with  me  they  would 
be  '  taught  because  true  '. 

It  may  perhaps  be  worth  while  to  state  explicitly  that, 
whereas  there  are  many  different  degrees  of  truth  and 
sincerity,  the  modernist  (as  I  understand  Modernism)  aims 
before  all  things  at  the  highest  kind  of  both  ;  he  does  not 
think  that  he  has  attained  to  the  highest  truth  or  the  high- 
est sincerity  until  he  can  speak  from  personal  conviction. 
He  may  recognize  degrees  short  of  this,  and  acquiesce 
in  them  provisionally  ;  but  he  always  feels  that  his 
acquiescence  is  provisional ;  he  has  not  yet  attained  to 
the  verite  vraie,  which  is  the  crowning  stage  of  all. 

I  do  not  mention  this  because  I  think  that  anything 
of  great  importance  in  our  present  discussion  turns  upon 
it.  I  do  not  remember  that  anything  is  involved  that 
goes  beyond  the  question  of  wording.  But,  for  complete 
mutual  understanding,  it  is  perhaps  as  well  to  be  quite 
explicit. 

I  altogether  welcome  the  general  conclusion  to  which 
you  come  that  the  differences  between  us  are  differences 
of  degree  rather  than  of  kind.  You  more  than  once  express 
pleasure  and  to  some  extent  surprise  at  finding  that  this 
is  so  (pp.  24,  36,  55,  56  ;  cf .  71,  92,  supra).  And  I  should 
myself  be  inclined  to  say  that,  if  our  discussion  had  no 
other  effect  than  to  bring  out  this,  it  would  not  have 
been  in  vain. 

The  points  between  us  that  appear  still  to  need  a  little 
further  elucidation  are  these  : 

(1)  The  different  footing  of  what  we  agree  to  call  the 
metaphysical  and  historical  clauses  of  the  Creed. 


I 


96     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

(2)  In  connexion  with  this  some  further  remarks  should 

be  made  on  the  subject  of  Miracle. 

(3)  The  degree  of  enlightenment  conferred  upon  the 

Church  by  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

(4)  The  validity  of  the  assumption  on  which  your  view 

of  this  erdightenment  rests. 
To  complete  the  survey  there  should  be  added 

(5)  some  further  consideration  of  the  positive  grounds 

on  which  a  reasoned  view  of  this  subject  rests  ;  and 
lastly, 

(6)  an  attempt  to  indicate  more  precisely  the  place  of 

Relativity  of  Expression  in  the  whole  scheme. 
It  really  is  a  connected  and  coherent  scheme  which 
I  desire  to  put  forward  ;   and  by  it  I  am  prepared  either 
to  stand  or  fall. 

II 

When  I  drew  a  distinction  between  the  metaphysical 
and  historical  clauses  of  the  Creeds  and  expressed  my 
intention  of  confining  my  claim  for  latitude  of  interpreta- 
tion to  the  latter,  I  did  not  intend  to  do  this  on  the  ground 
of  any  inherent  difference  between  the  two  sets  of  clauses 
in  the  nature  of  things.  I  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  beheve 
that  there  is  an  element  of  relativity  in  all  human  expres- 
sion, and  therefore  in  both  classes  aUke.  The  same  kind 
of  relativity  is  really  apparent  in  each  class  :  relativity 
to  the  general  structure  of  the  human  mind  and  to  the 
particular  phase  of  its  history  to  which  the  clauses  of  the 
Creeds  and  the  statements  which  they  embody  belong. 

It  is  only  in  practice  that  a  difference  of  treatment 
becomes  desirable.  In  my  original  paper  (p.  12,  supra) 
I  expressed  the  view  that  the  ancients  showed  a  tendency 
to  over-definition  and  that  in  modern  times  the  demand 
for  such  definition  had  become  less  than  it  was.  I  do  not 
deny  that,  if  the  right  of  criticism  is  pressed,  it  may  be 
necessary  to  examine  closely  the  history  and  special 
application  of  every  metaphysical  term  that  is  used.    But 


Dr.  Sanday  III  97 

at  the  same  time  I  bear  in  mind,  what  you  have  yourself 
pointed  out,  the  essential  simplicity  of  these  terms  ;  and, 
beyond  a  general  caution  against  over-refinement,  I  do 
not  find  myself  called  upon  to  criticize.  It  might  be  other- 
wise, if  there  were  any  generally  accepted  philosophical 
system  current  to-day  and  not  current  in  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  Era.  If  there  had  been  such 
a  system,  it  might  be  necessary  to  draw  up  a  scheme  of 
equivalents  and  to  translate  the  language  of  the  past 
into  that  of  the  present.  But,  in  default  of  any  such 
generally  accepted  system,  the  necessity  does  not  arise. 
We  are  content  to  make  the  best  use  of  the  old  language 
that  we  can. 

But  this  state  of  things  does  not  hold  good  in  the  region 
of  history.  History  is  more  distinctly  a  progressive 
science  than  philosophy.  There  is  a  greater  amount  of 
general  agreement  as  to  the  nature  of  the  progress  made 
and  as  to  the  methods  now  in  use  as  compared  with 
those  employed  in  the  past.  The  full  application  of 
criticism  to  history  is  a  product  of  comparatively  modern 
times.  We  should  not  I  suppose  be  far  wrong  if  we  were 
to  regard  it  as  characteristic — and  increasingly  character- 
istic— of  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  we  happened  to  have  at  home 
a  translation  of  the  Histoire  Ancienne  of  Charles  Rollin 
(1661-1741),  which  had  a  considerable  vogue  in  its  day. 
I  remember  well  how  much  I  enjoyed  the  story  of  Cyrus, 
King  of  Persia,  as  told  by  this  writer.  It  was  only  many 
years  later  that  I  discovered  that  this  version  of  the  story 
was  based  upon  Xenophon's  Cyropaedia,  which  is  now 
known  to  be  largely  romance.  That  is  just  an  example 
of  the  difference  between  the  way  in  which  history  was 
written  some  two  hundred  years  ago  and  the  way  in 
which  it  is  written  now.  Naturally,  allowance  has  to  be 
made  for  this  difference.  Within  the  last  hundred  years 
a  complete  revolution  in  the  art  of  writing  history  has 
taken  place.    And  nowhere  has  this  revolution  been  more 

H 


98     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

marked  than  in  the  portion  of  history  covered  by  the  Bible. 
The  change  of  treatment  came  in  first  for  the  period 
included  in  the  Old  Testament ;  it  is  only  by  degrees  that 
it  has  been  carried  forward  to  the  period  included  in  the 
New. 

It  is  true  that  it  would  still  be  premature  to  speak  of 
an  accepted  version  of  New  Testament  history  ;  but  we 
may,  within  Hmits,  speak  of  a  version  that  would  find 
very  wide  acceptance  of  the  history  embraced  by  the  Old 
Testament.  We  are  compelled  to  look  ahead  ;  and  I 
confess  that  I  do  not  think  it  too  soon  to  let  our  general 
view  of  the  New  Testament  be  affected  by  our  general 
view  of  the  Old.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  revision  involves 
a  revised  conception  of  many  of  the  events  recorded  in 
both  the  Testaments.  We  begin  with  the  Old  Testament ; 
but  I  am  very  sure  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  begin  and 
end  there.  I  have  no  doubt  in  my  own  mind  that  the 
process  begun  in  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  must  be 
carried  forward  to  the  New. 

The  further  consequence  follows  that,  if  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  affected,  the  Creeds  must  also  be  affected.  By 
that  of  course  I  do  not  mean  the  wording  of  the  Creeds, 
but  the  meaning  that  we  attach  to  the  words.  It  is  here 
that  you  and  I  diverge.  I  know  that  you  regard  the 
Creeds  as  possessing  an  independent  authority  in  them- 
selves apart  from  the  New  Testament.  I  can  grant 
you  that  those  by  whom  they  were  composed  had  access 
to  a  rather  wider  Hterature  than  is  contained  within  the 
Canon.  For  instance,  they  had  some  Apocryphal  Gospels 
which  have  now  been  lost  ;  and  they  had  also  (at  the  time 
of  the  composition  of  the  nucleus  of  the  Old  Roman 
Creed,  which  is  the  basis  of  our  Apostles'  Creed)  a  certain 
amount  of  oral  tradition,  which  was  rapidly  running  dry. 
But  you  would  hardly  say  that  this  additional  Hterature 
and  additional  tradition  contributed  anything  substantial 
to  what  we  still  know  from  the  New  Testament.  You 
would  hardly  say  that  the  Descent  into  Hades  (which 


Dr.  Sanday  III  99 

was  of  course  a  later  insertion  in  the  Apostles'  Creed)  or 
the  Ascension  meant  for  the  authors  of  the  Creed  any- 
thing different  from  what  they  meant  for  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers. 

The  modern  historian  is  obliged  to  go  behind  both  the 
New  Testament  records  and  the  Creeds.  He  asks  himself 
what  really  happened  ;  and  then  he  finds  that  he  has  to 
discount  somewhat  the  tradition  as  it  has  come  down  to 
him.  You  yourself  do  this  to  a  certain  extent  (p.  87), 
and  I  go  rather  further  ;  that  is  the  difference  between  us. 

Ill 

At  this  point  comes  in  the  question  of  Miracles.  I 
naturally  cannot  attempt,  and  it  is  not  necessary  that 
I  should  attempt,  to  go  into  the  whole  of  this  question. 
But  it  may  not  be  inappropriate  for  me  to  try  to  state 
my  view  of  the  position  in  which  the  controversy  seems 
at  the  present  time  to  stand. 

1.  I  have  never  said,  and  never  thought,  that  miracles 
are  impossible.  If  we  take  miracle  in  the  sense  of '  wonder ' 
— an  event  outside  the  common  order,  and  specially 
connected  with  some  great  spiritual  manifestation 
emerging  from  that  order — then,  I  am  quite  prepared  to 
say  that  there  have  been  many  well-attested  miracles, 
which  have  played  a  real  and  important  part  in  the  history 
of  the  Christian  rehgion. 

It  is  only  quite  a  small  group  of  alleged  miracles  that 
I  feel  called  upon  to  challenge,  and  only  a  particular 
aspect  even  of  them.  It  was  really  in  order  to  narrow  the 
ground  to  the  consideration  of  this  small  group,  that 
I  suggested  the  distinction  between  miracles  supra 
naturam  and  contra  naturam.  My  object  was  not  scientific 
but  practical.  I  thought  that  the  distinction  would 
convey  a  sufficiently  clear  meaning  to  ordinary  people. 
By  '  nature  '  I  meant  what  are  commonly  called  '  the 
laws  of  matter  and  motion  '.     I  was  willing  to  admit 

H2 


100     Form  and  Content  in  Chnstian  Tradition 

every  form  of  miracle  that  was  consistent  with  the 
recognition  of  these  laws.  I  was  quite  prepared  for  the 
presence  in  the  miiverse  of  extraordinary  forces,  expressing 
themselves  in  extraordinary  phenomena.  I  do  not  doubt 
at  all  that  the  pubHc  ministry  of  our  Lord  and  of  the 
Apostles  was  accompanied  by  such  phenomena.  By  the 
term  supra  naturam  I  intended  to  recognize  their  extra- 
ordinary character  ;  I  intended  to  mark  them  as  the 
fitting  sign  or  effect  of  a  Cause  or  Causes  higher  than 
the  ordinary.  We  have  sufficient  warrant  for  beHeving 
that  from  time  to  time  such  causes  have  been  at  work 
in  the  world  ;  and  we  regard  them  as  culminating  in  the 
activities  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  those  whom  He 
chose  to  continue  and  carry  on  His  mission. 

But  the  well-attested  wonders  that  may  be  regarded 
as  coming  under  this  description  have  all  had  analogies 
of  some  kind  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  ;  they  have 
been  in  harmonious  relation  to  that  course  ;  they  have 
never  required  a  breach  or  contradiction  of  the  natural 
order.  It  is  precisely  here  that  we  draw  the  line.  Even  the 
alleged  events  that  really  imply  such  a  breach  or  con- 
tradiction are  very  few  in  number.  They  are  so  few  as 
to  raise  grave  doubts  whether  they  can  be  regarded  as 
strictly  historical. 

2.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  becoming  increasingly 
difficult  for  the  modern  mind  to  give  full  credence  to 
stories  of  this  nature.  That  is  the  position  of  things 
with  which  we  have  to  deal.  There  is  a  reluctance  to 
believe,  a  sense  of  incongruity,  a  difficulty  in  harmonizing 
all  the  details  of  these  events  with  the  regular  course 
of  the  universe  as  we  see  it. 

I  have  myseK  tried  to  analyse  this  widespread  unwilling- 
ness to  believe,  and  to  trace  it  to  its  roots.  But  my  attempt 
has  been  criticized.  The  Dean  of  Christ  Church  thinks 
that  I  exaggerate  the  stringency  of  the  behef  in  the  uni- 
formity of  nature.  Dr.  A.  C.  Headlam  regards  me  as 
involved  in  the  methods  and  presuppositions  of  mid- 


Dr.  Sanday  III  101 

Victorian  physics.  It  may  be  true  that  I  approached  the 
subject  from  a  standpoint  that  may  be  described  as 
mid- Victorian.  I  was  not  ignorant  of  the  change  that  has 
come  over  the  modern  scientific  conception  of  matter. 
But,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that 
this  change  had  made  any  difference  to  the  essential 
balance  of  the  argument.  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  said 
that  the  behef  in  the  strict  uniformity  of  nature  is  less 
strong  than  it  was.  I  take  that  behef  as  marking  a  deep- 
rooted  element  in  the  constitution  of  nature  as  God  has 
willed  it.  Indeed,  the  evidence  for  this  kind  of  regularity 
is  so  overwhelming  that  I  cannot  help  regarding  the 
will  that  finds  expression  in  it  as  deeply  rooted  in  the 
character  of  God  Himself.  For  this  reason  I  myself 
share  in  the  praeiudicium  or  reluctance  to  accept  anything 
inconsistent  with  it  of  which  I  have  spoken.  Given  two 
hypotheses  for  explaining  a  particular  narrative,  that 
which  does  not  involve  any  breach  of  the  regular  order 
has  for  me  a  strong  presumption  in  its  favour.  I  always 
bear  in  mind  the  possibihty  that  a  momentous  act  Uke 
the  Incarnation  might  well  be  supposed  to  have  been 
attended  by  special  circumstances.  But  the  special 
circumstances  alleged  seem  upon  the  face  of  them  far 
more  likely  to  have  been  produced  by  a  transitory  phase 
in  man's  ideas  about  God  than  by  a  real  exception  in 
the  mode  of  operation  of  God  Himself. 

3.  I  speak  of  this  as  an  antecedent  presumption.  But 
so  far  as  I  am  myseK  concerned,  the  reaUy  determining 
trains  of  argument  have  come  from  the  side  of  history 
and  criticism  or  from  that  of  psychology.  Two  such 
processes  of  reasoning  had  been  at  work  in  my  mind. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  was  the  approach  to  the  New 
Testament  through  the  Old.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
was  the  direct  study  of  the  New  Testament  itself.  These 
processes  converged  upon  the  same  result.  If  we  iso- 
lated that  particular  aspect  of  miracle  which  seemed  to 
raise  the  greatest  difficulties,  within  this  hmited  sphere, 


f 


102     Form  a7id  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

just  the  worst  of  those  difficulties  seemed  to  dissolve 
away. 

There  are,  it  is  weU  known,  certain  narratives  of  miracle 
in  the  Old  Testament,  clustering  especially  round  two 
events  or  groups  of  events,  the  Exodus  of  Israel  from 
Egypt  with  the  Wanderings  in  the  Desert,  and  the  activity 
of  the  prophets  EUjah  and  "Elisha.  But  in  each  of  these 
cases  there  was  room  for  the  apphcation  of  criticism.  In 
regard  to  the  Exodus  and  Wanderings,  there  was  an 
interval  that  would  have  to  be  measured  by  centuries 
between  the  events  and  the  earhest  record.  In  the  narra- 
tives of  Elijah  and  EUsha,  the  interval  was  not  so  great 
as  this  ;  but  still  there  was  a  substantial  interval,  a  space 
of  time  quite  long  enough  to  allow  for  the  growth  of 
legend.  A  closer  examination  seemed  to  show  that, 
while  there  was  a  nucleus  of  history,  there  was  an  outside 
fringe  of  folk-lore  the  details  of  which  were  fiUed  in  by 
the  popular  imagination.  In  no  single  instance,  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  was  there  such 
authentic  first-hand  testimony  as  could  estabhsh  the 
presence  of  details  which  involved  any  real  contradiction 
of  the  laws  of  nature.  Not  only  was  there  always  time 
for  the  accretion  of  such  details,  but  in  several  of  the 
more  noteworthy  examples  it  seemed  easy  to  see  how 
they  might  have  arisen. 

But  if  this  general  result  of  Old  Testament  criticism 
held  good,  there  remained  only  the  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament.  And  these  again  fell  into  two  classes,  those 
which  did  imply  and  those  which  did  not  imply  any  real 
contradiction  of  natural  laws.  And  there  was  further 
to  be  observed  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  this 
distinction  as  to  the  nature  of  the  miracles  and  a  parallel 
distinction  as  to  the  nature  of  the  evidence  on  which  the 
accounts  of  them  rested.  The  first-class  evidence,  that 
of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  was  available  only  for  the  miracles 
of  the  first  order.  Nowhere  did  this  first-class  testimony 
extend  to  and  cover  the  kind  of  details  that  were  peculiar 


D7\  Sanday  III  103 

to  the  miracles  of  the  second  order.  In  other  words, 
the  evidence  for  this  smaller  class  of  details  everywhere 
broke  down  ;  there  might  be  evidence  enough  to  establish 
the  general  truth  of  the  event  to  which  it  referred,  but 
when  it  came  to  be  applied  to  details — and  especially 
to  these  more  questionable  details — the  evidence  always 
proved  to  be  insufficient. 

While  this  result  seemed  to  emerge  in  the  regular 
course  of  documentary  criticism,  it  was  met  and  con- 
firmed by  another  result  which  seemed  to  come  out 
upon  the  side  of  history.  Whenever  suspicious  details 
are  found  in  our  documents,  the  next  question  that  has 
to  be  asked  is,  how  did  they  come  there  ?  If  they  are  not 
inherent  in  the  facts,  the  probability  will  be  that  they 
came  in  through  the  process  of  transmission — that  they 
came  in  through  the  play  of  the  popular  imagination  upon 
the  facts.  The  critic  has  then  to  seek  for  the  kind  of 
stimuli  that  would  naturally  suggest  such  accretions. 
He  is  not  always  called  upon  to  do  this  ;  but  it  strengthens 
his  case  when  he  is  able  to  do  it.  And  it  is  not  incumbent 
upon  him  to  lay  his  finger  upon  the  precise  cause  which 
led  to  any  particular  effect.  It  will  be  as  much  as  can  be 
reasonably  expected  if  he  is  able  to  point  to  some  generic 
tendency  which  might  naturally  give  rise  to  the  particular 
effect  that  has  to  be  accounted  for. 

It  seems  to  me  that  not  only  a  vera  causa  but  a  sufficient 
cause  for  what  we  conceive  to  be  adventitious  details 
in  the  Gospel  narratives  is  supplied  by  a  single  broadly 
operative  cause,  which  may  be  described  as  the  psychology 
of  the  chain  of  witnesses  and  writers.  The  writer  is  the 
last  Hnk  in  the  chain  ;  and  he  sets  down  what  is  in  his 
mind.  But  this  content  of  his  mind  is  the  final  resultant 
of  a  process  at  several  points  in  which  there  has  been  a 
play  of  influences,  more  often  unconscious  than  conscious, 
which  have  gone  to  shape  the  form  of  the  written  narrative 
as  it  ultimately  appears.  Among  these  shaping  influences, 
I  strongly  suspect  that  one  of  the  most  important  has 


104     Form  and  Content  in  Christimi  Tradition 

been  that  derived  from  precedents  and  analogies  supplied 
by  the  Old  Testament.  In  any  case,  the  minds  of  the 
successive  witnesses  and  writers  were  fuU  of  these  prece- 
dents and  analogies  ;  and,  without  knowing  it,  first  one 
and  then  another  contributed  a  detail  here  and  a  detail 
there  which  made  up  the  total  presentment  of  the  picture 
as  we  have  it. 

In  due  course  it  will  be  incumbent  on  scholars  to  plot 
out  a  rough  draft,  susceptible  of  improvement  and 
gradually  improved,  of  this  reconstructed  process  as  they 
conceive  of  it.  They  start  from  the  written  document, 
but  work  their  way  backwards  as  well  as  they  can  to 
something  approximately  representing  the  original  facts 
so  far  as  they  can  guess  at  them.  The  result  must  needs 
be  precarious  ;  no  one  will  ever  be  able  to  say  '  This 
is  what  really  happened  '  ;  the  most  that  can  be  done 
will  be  to  sketch  something  like  what  we  may  believe 
to  have  happened.  But  one  tentative  sketch  may  be 
more  like  than  another  ;  the  success  of  the  synthesis  will 
correspond  to  the  success  of  the  analysis.  God  will  accept 
what  is  offered  to  Him  in  an  honest  and  true  heart 
according  to  the  best  of  such  powers  as  His  servants  can 
dedicate  to  Him. 

IV 

That  is  what  I  may  call  the  modernist's  ideal.  It  is 
modest,  but  it  is  quite  sincere  ;  and  it  will  have  at  least 
the  advantage  of  being  all  of  a  piece  with  any  other 
studies  in  which  he  may  be  engaged.  If  his  proper  pro- 
vince is  history,  he  wUl  not  have  one  measure  for  sacred 
history  and  another  for  profane.  There  will  be  no  close 
compartments.  He  will  move  backwards  and  forwards 
from  the  one  ground  to  the  other  with  ease  and  freedom. 

You  and  I  are  both  sensitive  as  to  the  relation  in  which 
we  stand  to  the  great  movements  of  thought  which  are 
outside  although  they  may  include  us.  But  we  are 
sensitive  in  different  directions  and   with  reference  to 


Dr.  Sanday  III  105 

different  movements.  You  desire  to  subordinate  yourself 
to  the  great  body  of  Catholic  opinion,  I  should  be  sorry 
to  lose  touch  with  this  ;  but  at  the  same  time  its  hold 
upon  me  is  secondary,  rather  than  primary.  I  should 
be  even  more  sorry  to  lose  touch  with  what  I  may  call 
the  world  of  science.  I  profoundly  beUeve  that  in  neither 
direction  is  any  such  sacrifice  required  of  me.  I  pro- 
foundly beheve  that  a  presentation  of  Christianity  is 
possible  which  shall  be  at  once  in  strict  and  full  continuity 
with  the  past  and  shall  yet  be  in  complete  harmony  with 
the  most  assured  results  of  progressive  science  in  the 
present — with  progressive  science  on  all  its  sides,  not 
only  physiological  and  biological  but  historical,  exegetical, 
and  (in  a  sound  and  sober  sense)  critical.  All  that  I  need 
to  cement  this  far-reaching  harmony  is  a  due  allowance 
for  what  I  have  called  '  the  difference  of  times  '  in  the 
earlier  statements  of  the  Christian  creed  as  compared  with 
the  revised  statement  in  which  we  take  it  to  ourselves 
to-day.  I  know  that  you  challenge  the  phrase  ;  and  I 
know  that  it  is  challenged  by  those  whom  you  would 
claim  as  friends  and  alHes.  But  my  contention  is  that 
the  phrase  represents  an  absolutely  certain  fact  which, 
whether  it  is  chailenged  or  not,  cannot  be  avoided,  but 
must  before  long  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  truism. 
Every  age  has  its  own  complete  circle  of  ideas  ;  and  any 
single  section  of  those  ideas  stands  in  relation  to  all  the 
rest,  and  must  inevitably  change  as  they  change.  As  well 
bid  the  stream  stop  running,  or  the  tree  and  the  plant 
stop  growing,  as  attempt  to  arrest  and  petrify  the  normal 
progressive  movements  of  the  human  mind. 

Yet  I  perfectly  admit  that  this  solidarity  in  movement 
— like  the  steady,  irresistible  advance  of  a  glacier  which 

moveth  all  together  if  it  move  at  all — 

is  only  one-half  of  the  truth.  The  other  half  is  the  idea 
of  fixity,  stability,  and  permanence.  In  nature  we  see 
a  balance  between  these  two  great  principles.    And  I  do 


106     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

not  doubt  that  there  is  a  like  balance  in  the  world  of  thought 
and  beUef .  My  endeavour  is  to  maintain  an  equihbrium 
between  the  two  sides.  I  would  fain  think  that  I  do  this 
more  consistently  and  satisfactorily  than  you  do.  It 
seems  to  me  that,  on  your  view,  the  balance  incHnes 
too  much  on  the  side  of  permanence  as  compared  with 
that  of  change.  All  turns  on  those  two  unfortunate 
expressions,  '  infallibility '  and  '  unalterability  \^  which 
you  are  so  loth  to  let  go.  Both  seem  to  me  to  conflict 
with  the  analogy  of  nature.  No  such  thing  as  a  real  and 
strict  infaUibiHty  exists  here  below  ;  and  no  such  thing 
as  real  exemption  from  the  law  of  flux  and  change  can 
be  verifled  in  human  experience. 

You  seek  to  estabhsh  the  idea  of  fixity  by  an  appeal 
to  the  comforting  sense  of  security  which  it  gives  to  those 
who  hold  it.  You  describe  yourself  as  floating  along  a 
broad  stream,  the  stream  of  orthodox  Christian  tradition 
or  CathoHc  Christianity.  You  surrender  yourself  whoUy 
to  this  stream,  and  you  speak  of  the  comfort  which  such 
surrender  brings.  Whenever  I  come  across  this  argument 
from  the  comfortableness  of  the  Cathohc  system,  I  am 
always  reminded  of  that  famous  saying  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
about  the  Church  of  Rome  :  '  I  would  be  a  Papist  if 
I  could  ;  I  have  fear  enough  ;  but  an  obstinate  rationaUty 
prevents  me.'  The  Church  of  Rome  has  its  attractive 
features,  especially  certain  types  of  sainthness  ;  but  much 
that  might  be  a  temptation  to  others  is  no  temptation  to 
me — for  the  reason  alleged  by  Dr.  Johnson. 

I  doubt  if  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  too  comfortable.  It  is 
more  bracing  to  feel  that  one  stands  foursquare  to  all  the 
winds  that  blow.  And  other  sources  may  be  foimd  for 
the  exhilarating  sense  of  being  borne  upon  the  breast 
of  buoyant  waters. 

No  Christian  need  be  devoid  of  the  feeUng  of  comfort. 

^  The  weakened  sense  which  you  attach  to  these  terms  on  pp.  23,  33; 
67  goes  far  to  meet  me.  But  I  should  have  thought  that  it  was 
better  to  give  up  the  words  altogether. 


Dr.  Sanday  III  107 

And  I  would  submit  that  that  feehng  owes  more  to  that 
which  is  common  to  all  forms  of  Christianity  than  it  does 
to  the  distinctive  tenets  of  Catholicism — not  to  speak 
of  the  uncertainty  whether  the  assumptions  on  which 
those  tenets  rest  are  well  founded. 

However,  I  do  not  forget  that  the  cleavage  between  us 
on  this  head  may  easily  be  exaggerated.  I  too  believe,  as 
you  beHeve,  that  the  Church  of  Christ  has  been  divinely 
guided  in  its  definitions  of  doctrine.  It  is  only  that 
I  cannot  go  with  you  in  thinking  that  these  definitions 
shut  out  all  possibility  of  change.  I  am  content  to  leave 
them  as  they  are  in  their  essential  content ;  I  do  but 
reserve  to  myself  a  certain  freedom  of  apprehension, 
arising  out  of  the  relativity  of  outward  forms. 

When  we  speak  of  '  divine  guidance  ',  we  speak  of  what 
is  really  a  very  mysterious  thing.  It  is  not  so  much  a  ruling 
as  an  over-ruhng  of  a  process  carried  out  through  the 
agency  of  men.  To  be  assured  of  its  reality  we  have  to 
look  at  the  process  upon  a  sufficiently  large  scale.  If 
we  take  the  history  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  we  can 
certainly  see  in  it  a  wonderful  advance,  and  we  are 
justified  in  beheving  that  that  advance  has  been  carried 
out  in  pursuance  of  a  great  divine  plan.  We  can  go  so 
far  as  to  map  out  the  outHnes  of  this  plan  in  broad  steps 
or  stages.  But  we  should  be  wrong  if  we  were  to  suppose 
that  the  forward  movement  was  always  regular  and 
continuous.  If  we  took  our  sections  upon  a  smaller 
scale  we  should  often  be  left  in  doubt  whether  there  was 
any  forward  movement  at  all.  Human  progress,  especially 
intellectual  and  spiritual  progress,  has  always  been  sub- 
ject to  great  fluctuations  ;  it  has  had  its  ups  and  downs, 
its  setbacks  and  retrogressions.  At  times  the  advance 
has  been  rapid  ;  at  other  times  it  has  been  slow  and 
halting  ;  and  again  there  have  been  times  when  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  more  of  retreat  than  advance  ; 
ground  has  been  lost,  and  has  had  to  be  recovered  again. 

It  is  one  thing  to  believe  that  there  is  a  divine  guidance 


108     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

in  the  course  of  events  and  another  thing  to  believe  that 
we  can  single  out  any  particular  series  of  events  and  claim 
that  it  represents  the  pure  wdll  of  God  without  any 
admixture  of  human  frailty.  If  we  could  do  this,  the 
world  would  not  be  the  place  of  probation  that  it  is. 

If  some  hght  is  thrown  upon  the  smaller  movements 
of  mankind  by  comparing  them  with  the  larger,  so  also, 
conversely,  Hght  is  thrown  upon  the  larger  by  a  study 
of  the  smaller,  and  even  by  a  study  of  the  reHgious  history 
of  the  individual  in  which  the  search-rays  are  directed 
inwards  and  not  outwards.  The  individual  may  be 
aware  that  there  have  been  divine  influences  at  work  in 
him  ;  but  the  manner  in  which  they  work,  and  the  way 
in  which  they  are  blended  with  the  subtler  movements 
of  his  own  nature  is  beyond  the  power  of  any  self-analysis 
to  disentangle. 

The  upshot  of  it  aU  is  that,  if  I  describe  the  process 
spread  out  before  me  as  one  in  which  there  are  subtle 
veins  of  divine  guidance,  elements  of  permanent  and  eternal 
truth  crossed  and  intermixed  with  elements  of  transitori- 
ness  and  change,  I  can  feel  that  I  am  describing  or  at- 
tempting to  describe  something  that  I  can  really  see  ; 
I  can  feel  that  there  is  a  rough  kind  of  correspondence 
between  the  picture  and  the  reahty.  But,  if  I  brought 
in  such  terms  as  '  unalterable  '  and  '  infaUible  ',  I  should 
soon  feel  that  my  conscience  ceased  to  bear  witness  with 
me.  I  should  soon  find  myself  asking  '  why  unalterable  ? ' 
and  '  how  infallible  ?  ' 

V 

I  know  that  you  have  a  short  and  easy  method  which 
disposes  at  one  stroke  of  aU  these  perplexities.  You 
arrive  per  saltum  at  the  perfect  and  final  inerrancy  of 
the  whole  body  of  Church  doctrine.  And  you  claim  to 
have  reached  this  by  an  original  act  of  '  intuition  ' .  You 
elevate  your  principle  into  an  axiom  which  is  prior  to 
any  subsequent  processes  of  reasoning.    No  wonder  that 


Dr.  Sanday  III  109 

you  are  happy  and  content  and  find  all  the  subsequent 
processes  greatly  simplified.  They  are  really  implicit 
in  the  one  great  premiss,  which  you  lay  down  as  exempt 
from  all  discussion. 

Is  not  this  method  a  little  too  easy  and  a  little  too 
sweeping  ?  I  agree  with  you  that  there  are  some  pre- 
suppositions which  may  be  taken  as  axiomatic.  The 
behef  in  the  existence  of  the  external  world  is  such 
a  pre-supposition.  I  would  not  dispute  it  if  you  main- 
tain that  the  fundamental  ideas  of  rehgion — God,  Freedom, 
and  Immortahty — may  be  taken  without  proof,  though 
I  cannot  really  regard  them  as  independent  of  reason. 
But  I  cannot  in  the  least  see  that  broad  antecedent 
principles  such  as  these  supply  any  sound  analogy  or 
justification  for  the  claim  that  you  make  to  take  on 
trust  an  elaborate  system,  consisting  of  a  great  number 
of  distinct  propositions,  the  origin  and  history  of  which 
is  known  and  in  regard  to  which  the  process  by  which 
they  acquired  authority  can  be  retraced  and  tested.  In 
such  a  case  as  this  the  a  priori  method  is  surely  quite 
unsuitable.  Logically,  I  can  only  regard  your  funda- 
mental principle  as  a  petitio  principii  on  a  large  scale. 

I  must  admit,  however,  that  you  make  a  skilful  retort 
upon  me  here.  You  counter  my  criticisms  by  maintain- 
ing that  my  own  vaguer  behef  in  Providential  guidance 
and  control,  as  seen  especially  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
in  the  history  of  the  Chosen  People  as  the  vehicle  of  Old 
Testament  rehgion,  rests  upon  no  better  basis,  but  is 
itself  too  assumed  without  proof. 

The  argument  that  I  had  used  was  an  appeal  to  the 
great  texts  of  the  Old  Testament  which  stand  out  in 
such  a  wonderful  way  as  marking  steps  or  stages  in  the 
development  of  what  we  are  in  the  habit  of  caUing 
revealed  rehgion.  These  great  texts  are  the  utterances 
of  the  prophets  and  other  rehgious  leaders  of  Israel, 
and  they  claim  to  be  spoken  by  divine  authority  and 
were   as  a  matter  of   fact  accepted    as  having  divine 


110     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

authority  behind  them.  You  and  I  both  believe  that 
they  really  had  this  authority,  which  we  believe  to  have 
been  none  the  less  divine  because  it  came  through  human 
media  and  was  exercised  under  human  conditions  with- 
out any  apparent  apparatus  of  logical  proof. 

I  was  not  wholly  unprepared  for  the  construction 
which  you  put  upon  this  fact  and  the  use  that  you  make 
of  it.  I  had  asked  myself  long  ago  what  is  the  real 
place  of  these  authoritative  sayings  in  the  great  divine 
scheme  of  things.  Have  they  any  logical  foothold,  or 
do  they  hang  entirely  in  the  air  ?  As  they  were  first 
uttered,  they  carried  their  own  authority  with  them  ; 
they  claimed  to  be  spoken  in  the  name  of  God,  and  they 
were  accepted  as  being  really  spoken  in  His  name.  You 
are  quite  within  your  rights  in  pointing  out  that  such 
sayings  as  '  The  Lord  is  slow  to  anger  and  plenteous  in 
mercy',  'Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children',  are 
by  no  means  of  the  nature  of  direct  induction  from 
observed  facts.  This  is  perfectly  true  ;  and  it  is  true 
that,  if  we  confined  ourselves  to  direct  induction  from 
such  facts  as  came  within  our  observation,  we  should 
never  arrive  at  the  central  truth  that  '  God  is  Love '. 

But  direct  induction  is  not  the  only  method  of  proof. 
There  is  another  method  that  is  equally  valid  and  equally 
normal.  In  the  case  of  induction,  the  facts  are  collected 
and  a  definite  conclusion  is  drawn  from  them  ;  the  facts 
come  first  and  the  conclusion  comes  last.  But  the 
process  may  be  inverted  with  equal  vaHdity.  We  may 
start  with  the  conclusion,  and  then  verify  it  by  a  number 
of  examples.  This  is  the  formal  justification  for  many 
of  the  behefs  that  occupy  the  place  of  first  principles  in 
the  Christian  religion.  That  God  is  Love,  is  a  principle 
of  this  kind.  It  may  be  called  an  anticipated  truth.  It 
is  a  truth  that  is  not  obvious  at  first  sight ;  but  once 
assumed,  it  may  be  verified  indefinitely,  until  the  strong 
assurance  is  reached  that  it  would  be  verified  completely 
if  we  were  able  to  foUow  the  whole  course  of  things. 


Dr.  Sanday  III  111 

And  this  is  the  real  reason  why  this  alternative  method 
is  so  much  more  appropriate  to  the  subject-matter  than 
that  of  direct  induction.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
we  men,  as  Bishop  Butler  used  to  say,  find  ourselves 
stranded  in  the  midst  of  '  a  scheme  imperfectly  com- 
prehended '.  What  we  see  around  us  and  are  capable 
of  studying  directly,  is  only  part  of  a  much  vaster  whole. 
The  conclusions  that  we  might  be  tempted  to  draw  from 
the  little  that  we  can  see  are  subject  to  correction  from 
the  context  that  is  unseen.  But  God  has  revealed  to  us 
enough,  through  the  various  modes  of  His  operation,  to 
put  us  in  the  way  of  verifjdng  many  a  truth  that  would 
not  be  self-evident  in  its  immediate  context,  but  becomes 
self-evident  in  its  relation  to  the  larger  whole  that  has 
been  gradually  built  up  by  the  religious  experience  of 
the  race,  and  especially  of  that  portion  of  the  human 
race  which  He  would  seem  to  have  chosen  as  typical 
and  representative  of  the  race  ;  in  other  words,  by  the 
rehgious  experience  of  Christians. 

I  cannot  therefore  admit  that  the  series  of  greater 
truths  which  form  as  it  were  the  underside  of  Christianity 
are  really  devoid  of  proof  or  dependent  upon  a  merely 
unverified  intuition.  What  we  call  '  intuition '  often 
includes  a  great  amount  of  sub-conscious  and  unconscious 
reasoning  ;  and  the  intuition  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking  is  often  largely  of  that  Idnd. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  share  with  you  the  benefit  of 
these  considerations.  After  all,  we  recognize  that  we 
are  largely  agreed.  And  I  am  prepared  to  believe  that 
there  may  be  a  good  deal  of  semi-conscious  reasoning 
included  in  the  '  intuition '  on  which  you  base  your 
own  position.  But  you  seem  to  me,  if  I  may  say  so,  to 
make  the  mistake  of  claiming  too  much — more  than  can 
be  legitimately  given.  And  the  chief  reason  why  I  prefer 
my  position  to  yours,  is  because  it  does  not  do  this.  The 
verification  is  more  complete  ;  it  seems  to  fit  the  whole 
body  of  the  phenomena  much  better. 


I 


112     Form  and  Content  in  Christian   Tradition 

VI 

I  must  not  forget,  however,  that  you  meet  me  on  this 
ground.  You  urge — perhaps  naturally — that  the  ques- 
tion between  us  is  a  question  as  to  facts,  and  that  facts 
are  by  the  nature  of  the  case  unalterable.  You  take  as 
an  instance  the  assassination  of  Marat  by  Charlotte 
Corday.  No  lapse  of  time  can  alter  this.  It  is  either 
true  or  false  ;  and  if  it  is  true,  it  is  true  for  ever.  And 
then,  you  argue  further,  that  the  Virgin  Birth  and  the 
Resurrection  are  as  much  facts  as  the  Crucifixion.  We 
raise  no  question  about  the  Crucifixion  ;  and  why  should 
we  raise  any  about  other  clauses  of  the  Creed  that  are 
associated  with  it  ? 

Such  reasoning  has  a  plausible  appearance  at  first 
sight,  but  it  will  not  bear  examination.  It  is  of  course 
true  that  we  are  concerned  with  facts,  but  our  immediate 
concern  is  with  history,  or  the  record  of  facts.  The 
ultimate  facts  do  not  change,  but  our  subjective  attitude 
towards  them  may  and  does  largely  change.  I  have 
already  spoken  of  this,  in  speaking  of  history  as  a  subject 
of  study.  I  instanced  the  case  of  the  youth  of  Cyrus  ; 
I  pointed  out  that  the  story  of  his  youth  is  no  longer 
written  on  the  basis  of  the  Cyropaedia.  That  is  a  much 
nearer  analogy  than  the  case  of  Charlotte  Corday. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  history — which  is  also  the 
point  of  view  of  beUef — there  is  a  great  difference  between 
facts.  Some  are  perfectly  simple  and  of  the  kind  that, 
as  you  rightly  say,  has  to  be  '  taken  or  left '.  They  are 
directly  amenable  to  testimony,  and  the  testimony 
offered  is  ample  and  satisfactory.  The  Crucifixion  is 
a  fact  of  this  order,  but  not  so  the  Virgin  Birth  or  the 
Resurrection.  In  both  these  cases,  the  portion  of  the 
statement  amenable  to  direct  testimony  is  relatively 
small ;  the  rest  is  made  up  of  inference  and  conjecture. 
The  so-caUed  fact  is  no  longer  a  simple  or  hard  fact,  but 
includes  a  large  amount  of  speculation  ;    and  to  this 


Dr.  Sanday  III  113 

speculative  element  the  attitude  of  the  twentieth  century 
is  quite  different  from  that  of  the  first.  In  the  meantime 
there  has  sprung  up  a  stricter  criticism  of  documents 
and  the  whole  new  science  of  Comparative  ReHgion.  It 
is  here  that  the  difference  comes  in,  and  that  the  old 
traditional  verdicts  have  to  be  reviewed  and  tested. 
There  is  nothing  wanton  or  arbitrary  in  the  process  ; 
it  has  become  quite  inevitable. 

You  will  perhaps  say  that  neither  criticism  nor  com- 
parative study  present  a  clear  enough  verdict  to  upset 
the  old  tradition.  That  is  the  real  point  at  issue.  I  do 
not  say  that  they  upset  the  whole  of  it,  but  only  that 
part  which  is  most  speculative. 

If  you  tell  me  that  even  this  speculative  portion  is 
too  important  to  have  been  left  by  God  subject  to  doubt 
and  uncertainty,  I  should  reply  by  an  appeal  to  Bishop 
Butler.  I  should  submit  that  we  never  can  know  before- 
hand what  God  will  do  and  what  He  will  not  do.  A  priori 
judgements  of  this  kind  are  constantly  being  proved 
wrong. 

Our  object  is,  not  to  lay  down  what  we  think  ought 
to  be  or  what  ought  not,  but  to  describe  as  truthfully 
and  exactly  as  possible  what  actually  is.  That  is  really 
the  sum  and  substance  of  any  attempt  at  reconstruction 
that  I  have  tried  to  make  myseK.  I  have  done  it  in  the 
first  instance  for  my  own  satisfaction  under  the  gradual 
pressure  of  the  experience  and  thought  of  a  lifetime. 
And  I  have  ventured  to  put  so  much  of  it  as  I  have  into 
print  in  the  hope  that  it  might  be  helpful  to  others 
whose  experience  and  point  of  view  at  all  resemble 
my  own. 

I  speak  only  for  myself  ;  or — so  far  as  I  can  in  any 
degree  pretend  to  speak  in  the  name  of  others  besides 
myself — we  speak  only  for  ourselves.  It  is  really  an 
attempt  to  meet  a  new  demand,  corresponding  to  a  com- 
paratively advanced  state  of  civilization.  In  old  times 
people  have  been  content  to  say  in  general  terms — very 

I 


114     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

often  in  terms  inherited  from  the  past — what  they 
believed.  But  in  these  modern  days,  with  the  growing 
sensitiveness  of  the  intellectual  conscience,  they  feel 
under  an  obligation  to  say  distinctly  not  only  what  they 
believe  but  in  what  precise  sense  they  believe  it.  This 
does  indeed  perhaps  open  up  a  certain  risk  of  collision 
with  some  of  those  who  under  different  conditions  would 
express  their  own  beliefs  differently.  The  remedy  seems 
to  lie  in  the  corresponding  growth  of  a  large  degree  of 
mutual  tolerance  and  respect  for  the  opinions  of  others 
on  the  part  of  all  who  agree  to  meet  in  common  accep- 
tance of  the  broadly  worded  confessions  of  the  past. 


VII 

In  all  that  I  have  just  been  saying  the  idea  of  Relative 
Truth,  or  of  the  relative  expression  of  Truth,  is  an  essen- 
tial part .  The  scheme  of  Divine  Providence  is  a  progressive 
scheme.  Truth  has  been  implanted  among  us  in  the  form 
of  germs,  which  have  gone  on  growing  and  developing. 
But  the  expression  of  truth  at  each  successive  stage 
from  the  very  first  has  been  strictly  related  and  pro- 
portioned to  the  sum  of  intellectual  development  attained 
at  the  time  to  which  it  belonged.  It  simply  is  so,  and 
has  been  so,  and  no  amount  of  theoretic  manipulation 
on  our  part  can  make  it  otherwise. 

There  are  indeed  differences  of  degree  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  subject-matter.  Some  religious  truths 
are  capable  of  being  expressed  in  a  more  permanent 
form  than  others.  When  Israel  had  reached  the  stage 
at  which  it  was  possible  to  formulate  the  moral  duty  of 
man  in  that  concise  sentence,  '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and 
with  all  thy  strength,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself  ', 
that  was  the  very  climax  of  brevity  and  simplicity  along 
with  richness  of  potential  import.    But  there  were  other 


Dr.  Sandaij  III  115 

truths  that  had  to   be  conveyed  more  gradually  and 
embodied  in  more  complex  and  subtler  definitions. 

Take  as  an  example  that  central  doctrine  from  which 
we  derive  our  very  name  of  Christians.  This  name  really 
is  for  us  an  important  and  fundamental  element  in  the 
fabric  of  our  beliefs.  We  are  the  '  people  of  the  Messiah, 
the  Lord's  Anointed  '.  There  are  those  who  tell  us  that 
this  idea  of  the  Messiah  and  of  divine  anointing  has 
done  its  work  and  is  obsolete,  that  it  is  a  rag  of  Judaism 
adhering  to  Christianity.  It  is  wrong  and  unfilial  to 
speak  thus,  though  the  centre  of  gravity  has  somewhat 
shifted  and  we  fall  back  more  naturally  on  other  terms 
to  express  the  same  thing.  The  test  point  is  that  the 
conception  of  the  Messiah  certainly  formed  an  integral 
and  important  part  of  the  consciousness  of  our  Lord 
Himself  ;  it  had  a  living  meaning  for  Him.  He  had 
a  real  need  of  it  to  express  to  Himself  the  secret  of  His 
own  Being,  and  to  convey  that  secret  to  the  intelligence 
of  a  part  at  least  of  the  world  around  Him.  The  Christian 
of  to-day,  when  he  seeks  the  highest  sanction  for  his  own 
beliefs,  goes  reverently  over  the  whole  ground.  He 
looks  reverently  into  the  mirror  of  that  Divine  con- 
sciousness, and  he  tries  to  apply  to  himself  and  assimilate 
what  he  sees  there.  He  is  constantly  paraphrasing  for 
his  own  use  in  various  connexions  the  famous  lines  : 

What  that  Word  doth  make  it 
That  I  believe  and  take  it. 

The  emphasis  may  fall  differently,  but  the  intention  is 
throughout  the  same. 

Another  of  the  old  fundamental  conceptions  comes 
back  to  us  ;  and  here  again  we  have  substantially  the 
same  conditions.  What  the  doctrine  of  the  Messiah  was 
for  our  Lord  Himself,  that  the  philosophical  doctrine  of 
the  Logos  was  for  the  next  and  succeeding  generations 
of  His  disciples.  For  them  this  doctrine  was  full  of 
varied  suggestiveness  and  help,  though  it  would  be  too 

12 


116     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

much  to  claim  that  it  was  an  absolutely  perfect  and 
final  expression  of  the  truth  that  it  was  intended  to 
convey.  Different  ages  have  in  like  manner  made  use 
of  different  formulations  and  ideas,  all  subsidiary  to  the 
same  result,  though  none  of  them  exactly  coincided  with 
and  exhausted  that  result.  Down  to  this  present  time 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  either  the  Church  of  Christ 
as  a  whole  or  any  individual  Christian,  even  the  most 
learned  and  the  most  philosophical,  has  really  arrived 
at  an  absolutely  perfect  expression  for  that  which  all 
alike,  both  the  Body  and  the  members,  have  been 
struggling  both  to  express  for  themselves  and  to  formu- 
late for  the  use  of  others.  They  are  still  in  the  position 
that  they  can  afford  to  neglect  or  despise  none  of  the 
achievements  of  the  past.  Those  achievements  may 
have  been  partial,  and  elements  in  them  may  have  been 
provisional  and  transitory,  but  they  were  all  ingredients 
— and  valuable  ingredients — in  the  manifold  and  multi- 
form whole.  We  do  not  know  what  the  future  may  have 
in  store  for  us.  There  may  set  in  a  period  of  greater 
concentration  and  simplification  of  which  some  coming 
generation  or  generations  may  reap  the  benefit.  Our 
duty  is,  in  the  meanwhile,  to  make  the  best  use  we  can 
of  that  which  we  have  ourselves  inherited  from  the  past 
and  as  good  stewards  to  hand  it  on  to  our  successors. 

It  will  be  seen  from  such  a  sketch  as  this  why  I  and 
those  whoever  they  may  be,  whether  many  or  few,  who 
agree  with  me,  so  strongly  deprecate  the  whole  idea  of 
denials.  The  Christian  effort  after  the  formulation  of 
divine  truth  must  be  taken  as  a  whole  in  all  its  successive 
historical  phases.  We  need  it  as  a  whole,  apprehended 
in  all  its  various  degrees,  if  it  is  to  take  shape  for  us  in 
any  sort  of  completeness. 

In  such  a  condition  of  things,  denial  is  only  too  apt 
to  mean  mutilation  ;  and  the  attitude  of  denial  is  just 
the  wrong,  and  not  the  right,  attitude.  Der  Geist  der 
stets  verneint  is  the  spirit  of  Mephistopheles  and  not  of 


Dr.  Sandmj  III  117 

the  Christian.  Our  enemies  and  a  few  of  our  too-zealous 
friends,  through  a  mistake  of  judgement,  try  to  inveigle 
us  into  denials,  but  we  steadily  refuse  to  be  either  drawn 
or  driven  into  them. 

To  abstain  from  certain  affirmations  is  an  altogether 
different  thing.  That  may  be  only  the  response  of 
a  sensitive  conscience  to  the  recognition  of  altered  con- 
ditions. It  may  be  only  an  incident  in  the  inevitable 
process  of  adjustment.  The  particular  detail  that  seems 
to  drop  out  may  be  abundantly  compensated  for  by  the 
enlarged  significance  of  some  other  detail  which  remains 
behind.  As  I  said  just  now,  it  may  be  nothing  more 
than  a  change  of  emphasis  ;  in  other  words,  no  change 
of  substance,  but  only  a  certain  shifting  in  the  play  of 
light  and  shade. 

This,  and  not  any  other,  is  the  kind  of  position  which 
I  and  those  who  think  with  me  desire  to  defend.  We 
wish  to  be  judged  upon  our  merits,  and  not  with  refer- 
ence to  any  one  else.  For  that  reason  I  would  submit 
to  you  that  Troeltsch  and  his  alUes  may  be  left  out  of 
the  question.  Their  aims  are  not  ours,  and  the  Umits 
within  which  we  desire  to  work  are  not  theirs. 

The  real  ground  on  which  we  are  prepared  to  be  judged 
is  the  ground  of  consistency  with  objective  and  verifiable 
facts.  We  aim  at  taking  the  fullest  possible  account  of 
these,  no  matter  from  what  side  they  come.  Our  range 
is  cathoHc.  There  is  no  form  or  kind  of  reality  that  we 
consider  alien  to  us,  whether  spiritual  or  material.  We 
only  feel  bound  to  apply  rather  strict  tests  as  to  what 
is  reality  and  what  is  not.  Subject  to  these  tests,  we 
aim  at  sacrificing  neither  the  old  to  the  new  nor  the 
new  to  the  old.  Our  theology  is  still,  in  all  essentials, 
the  theology  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  ;  what  they  laid 
stress  upon,  we  also  lay  stress  upon  ;  our  view  of  the 
spiritual  world  aspires  to  be,  both  in  whole  and  parts, 
fundamentally  the  same  as  theirs.    We  believe  that  this 


I 


118     Forrn  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

view  is  firmly  anchored  in  the  innermost  heart  of  things. 
But  at  the  same  time  we  claim  the  right  to  express  to 
ourselves  the  ApostoHc  teaching  in  the  language  that  is 
most  natural  to  the  century  in  which  we  live.  Without 
this  right  we  should  feel  that  our  own  assent  to  it  was 
forced  and  strained  and  not  more  than  half  sincere. 
For  us  there  is  no  dilemma  ;  because  we  maintain  that 
the  two  sides  of  our  faith  not  only  can  be  but  have  been 
reconciled.  All  that  we  need  to  do  is  to  set  them  frankly 
side  by  side.  We  render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,  and  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's,  as  we 
hope  in  just  and  due  proportions,  not  forgetting  that  the 
latter  includes  the  former  and  that  what  we  call  Caesar 
and  all  his 'works  is  but  a  form  of  the  one  great  Divine 
self-manifestation. 

Yours  very  smcerely, 

W.  SANDAY. 


MR.  N.  P.  WILLIAMS'  CONCLUDING 
LETTER 

My  dear  Dr.  Sanday, 

The  task  which  lies  before  me  now  is  a  somewhat 
difficult  one.  I  have  to  reply  to  the  criticisms  directed  by 
you  in  your  last  letter  against  my  position,  or  such  parts 
of  my  position  as  you  do  not  feel  able  to  accept  :  and  you 
will  no  doubt  expect  me  to  reply  to  the  best  of  my  abiUty  ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  my  answer  must  be  phrased  in  such 
a  way  as  not  to  place  you  under  the  necessity  of  sending 
me  yet  another  rejoinder,  for  so  our  correspondence  might 
be  prolonged  ad  infinitum.  Perhaps,  however,  I  may 
console  myself  with  the  reflection  that  (if  this  correspon- 
dence is  to  be  published)  you  will  in  reality  have  the  last 
word,  as  it  will  fall  to  you  to  write  an  Introduction  ;  and 
this  consideration  will  doubtless  justify  my  writing  with 
rather  more  liberty  than  I  might  have  otherwise  felt  able 
to  assume. 


Before  addressing  myself  to  the  consideration  of  the 
cardinal  points  at  issue  between  us,  I  should  like  to  com- 
ment briefly  on  your  remarks  with  regard  to  '  authority  ' 
and  '  truth ',  contained  in  section  I  of  your  last  letter 
(p.  94).  You  say  '  For  me,  the  ultimate  standard  of 
judgement  is  what  I  conceive  to  be  Truth.  Authority  has 
its  weight ;  but  I  could  not  accept  a  thing  purely  upon 
authority,  if  I  did  not  also  beUeve  it  to  be  true.  With  me, 
the  idea  of  Truth  stands  behind  everything  else  ;  with  you, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  idea  of  Authority  sometimes 
takes  precedence  and  becomes  a  ground  of  acceptance 
independently  of  truth.'     I  hope  you  will  not  think  that 


I 


120     Form  and  Content  in  Chjistian  Tradition 

I  am  being  unduly  captious  :  but,  to  my  mind,  these 
words  sound  as  though  you  thought  that  /  am  not  also 
interested  primarily  in  Truth.  Obviously,  one  can  only 
'  accept '  a  proposition  because  one  beheves  it  to  be '  true ' : 
it  would  require  quite  inconceivable  mental  perversity  to 
'  accept '  a  statement  which  one  knew  to  be  false,  merely 
because  it  was  promulgated  by  authority.  Of  course,  as 
I  have  explained  before,  the  fact  that  certain  statements 
are  vouched  for  by  '  Authority '  is,  on  our  view,  good 
evidence  for  their  truth  ;  but  it  is,  in  theory,  conceivable 
that  this  kind  of  evidence  might  be  cancelled  by  abso- 
lutely indubitable  and  irrefutable  evidence  provided  by 
the  senses,  or  by  some  rigorous  and  exact  chain  of  reason- 
ing ;  in  which  case,  the  statements  in  question  would  fall 
to  the  ground,  and  the  whole  fabric  of  '  Authority  '  with 
them.  As  I  have  said  before,  I  beUeve  in  the  Virgin 
Birth  (a)  because  the  Church  and  the  Scriptures  say  that  it 
was  so,  (6)  because  it  seems  to  me  appropriate  and  con- 
gruous to  the  idea  of  a  Divine  Incarnation  that  it  should 
have  been  so,  and  (c)  because  I  know  of  no  good  reason 
for  disbelieving  that  it  was  so  ;  but  if  a  papyrus  were 
discovered  at  Nazareth  which  proved,  beyond  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt,  that  our  Lord  was  not  born  of  a  virgin,  I  should 
at  once  and  without  hesitation  abandon,  not  merely  the 
behef  in  the  Virgin  Birth,  but  all  the  rest  of  CathoUc 
Christianity  as  well.  Such  a  declaration  as  this  ought,  in 
my  opinion,  to  vindicate  me  and  those  who  think  with  me 
from  any  charge,  or  even  suggestion,  of  indifference  to 
truth.  When  you  say,  '  The  Modernist  .  .  .  aims  above 
all  things  at  the  highest  kind  of  (truth  and  sincerity)  :  he 
does  not  think  that  he  has  attained  to  the  highest  truth  or 
the  highest  sincerity  until  he  can  speak  from  personal 
conviction,'  you  are  affirming  what  I  have  never  doubted  : 
it  is,  perhaps,  not  impertinent  to  add  that  the  love  of  truth 
and  sincerity  is  not  the  Modernist's  monopoly.  The  most 
convinced  TraditionaUst  can  heartily  subscribe  to  the 
maxim,  Deus  mendacio  nostra  non  indiget.    Of  course  the 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  121 

point  is  a  purely  verbal  one,  for  I  do  not  suppose  for 
a  moment  that  you  really  mean  to  accuse  us  of  putting 
the  interests  of  authority  first,  and  the  interests  of  truth 
second  :  but,  as  you  say,  '  for  complete  mutual  under- 
standing, it  is  as  well  to  be  quite  explicit.' 

II 

The  first  point  of  importance  which  claims  attention 
is  the  question  of  '  modern  methods  of  writing  history ', 
and  the  influence  which  they  are  entitled  to  exert  upon 
the  form  (as  distinct  from  the  content)  of  Christian 
behefs  at  the  present  day.  I  understand  you  to  contend 
as  follows  : — 

(1)  Within  the  last  hundred  years  a  '  complete  revolu- 
tion '  has  taken  place  in  the  art  of  writing  history.  The 
methods  of  textual,  literary,  and  historical  criticism  have 
been  improved,  sharpened,  and  raised  to  a  degree  of 
efficiency  and  certitude  hitherto  undreamed  of. 

(2)  In  many  domains  of  history,  the  application  of 
these  improved  critical  methods  to  the  documentary 
sources  has  resulted  in  a  complete  houleversement  of  the 
traditional  view.  This  has  been  conspicuously  the  case  in 
regard  to  the  Old  Testament.  Many  narratives  contained 
in  the  Old  Testament  Canon  are  now  regarded  as  belonging 
to  the  sphere  of  legend  rather  than  to  that  of  history  ;  and, 
even  in  the  case  of  those  narratives  which  are  recognized 
as  strictly  historical,  the  whole  perspective  has  been 
altered,  so  that  what  the  narratives  represent  as  primitive 
is  now  seen  to  be  the  product  of  later  development, 
projected  by  the  imagination  of  the  devout  into  the 
past. 

(3)  It  is  therefore  to  be  expected  a  priori  that  the 
application  of  modern  critical  methods  to  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament  will  have  the  same  results  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Old — that  some  narratives  will  be  discovered  to 
be  rather  of  the  nature  of  poetical  legend  than  of  exact 


122     Form  and  Co7itent  in  Oiristian  Tradition 

history,  and  that  in  the  case  of  the  others  the  balance  and 
perspective  of  the  historical  scheme  will  be  considerably 
modified. 

I  am  afraid  that  I  must  entirely  dispute  the  cogency  of 
this  argument.  Because  some  ancient  documents  which 
profess  to  be  history  have  been  discovered  to  be  romance, 
it  does  not  follow  that  all  will  be.  To  quote  your  own 
instance — it  would  clearly  be  fallacious  to  argue  that 
because  Xenophon's  Cyropaedia  is  largely  romance,  there- 
fore Tacitus's  hfe  of  Agricola  must  be  expected  a  priori  to 
be  largely  romance.  Because  Herodotus  is  admittedly 
full  of  legendary  stories,  it  does  not  follow  that  Thucydides 
must  be  expected  to  be  full  of  legendary  stories.  I  do  not 
suppose,  of  course,  that  you  regard  this  part  of  your  argu- 
ment as  constituting  a  rigorously  exact  syllogism,  because 
it  would  obviously  involve  an  '  undistributed  middle',  viz. 
the  term  '  ancient  documents'.  But  even  if  you  mean 
(as  I  do  not  doubt  that  you  do  mean)  only  to  claim  for 
your  conclusion  a  general  antecedent  probability,  and  not 
mathematical  certainty,  I  fear  that  I  cannot  concede  even 
this.  I  cannot  admit  any  cogency  whatever  in  the  con- 
tention '  because  some  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  are 
admittedly  poetry  rather  than  history,  it  is  therefore  ante- 
cedently probable  that  some  portions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  poetry  rather  than  history '.  It  may  be  so  :  but 
we  shall  only  admit  that  it  is  so  when  compelled  by  the 
best  of  objective  and  a  posteriori  evidence.  And  this  it 
seems  to  me  that  you  fail  to  supply.  In  your  last  letter 
you  content  yourself  with  stating,  '  I  confess  that  I  do  not 
think  it  too  soon  to  let  our  general  view  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment be  affected  by  our  general  view  of  the  Old '  .  .  , 
(p.  98).  'I  have  no  doubt  in  my  own  mind  that  the  pro- 
cess begun  in  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  must  be 
carried  forward  to  the  New  '  (ibid.)  ;  but  the  matter  is 
clearly  not  one  that  can  be  settled  by  an  ipse  dixit.  We 
(that  is,  those  who  think  with  me)  are  constrained  to 


Mr.  N.  P.   WilUavis  III  123 

demand  that  each  document  of  the  New  Testament  Canon 
shall  be  judged  on  its  merits  and  without  prejudice  ;  and, 
as  I  said  in  my  last  letter,  if  the  result  of  a  scientific  and 
dispassionate  investigation  is  to  disprove  the  historicity 
of  the  events  which  they  narrate,  we  are  prepared  to  take 
the  consequences,  and  to  jettison  the  beliefs  which  rest 
upon  these  (alleged)  events  ;  but  we  cannot  acquiesce  in 
what  we  should  naturally  regard,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  exact  logic,  as  a  quiet  begging  of  the  whole  question 
before  it  has  been  adequately  discussed. 

I  must  needs  feel  that  a  certain  ambiguity  lurks  in  the 
sentence  which  I  have  just  quoted, '  I  have  no  doubt  in  my 
own  mind  that  the  process  begun  in  reference  to  the  Old 
Testament  must  be  carried  forward  to  the  New '  (p.  98). 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  I  could  heartily  accept  this 
proposition  and  make  it  my  own,  and  another  sense  in 
which  I  should  be  compelled  emphatically  to  disagree  with 
it.  It  all  depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  '  the  process 
begun  in  reference  to  the  Old  Testament '.  If  you  merely 
mean  that  the  same  critical  methods  must  be  employed  for 
fixing  the  text  of  the  New  Testament,  for  determining  the 
sources  of  its  narratives,  and  for  evaluating  the  historical 
character  of  these  somrces,  as  have  been  employed  in  the 
case  of  the  Old  Testament,  I  heartily  agree  :  that  is,  with 
the  proviso  that  these  critical  methods  shall  be  used  with 
the  sanity  and  sobriety  which  distinguishes  the  work  of 
the  best  British  scholars,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  late 
Dr.  Driver.  I  have  no  desire  to  warn  off  criticism,  as  such, 
from  the  field  of  the  New  Testament.  But  if  you  mean 
that '  the  process  begun  in  reference  to  the  Old  Testament ' 
must  be  '  carried  forward  to  the  New ',  in  the  sense  that 
criticism  must  consciously  aim  at  producing  a  bouleverse- 
ment  of  New  Testament  tradition  similar  to  that  which 
has  been  undergone  by  Old  Testament  tradition,  I  must 
beg  leave  to  disagree.  I  have  no  objection  to  the  same 
processes  being  applied  to  the  New  Testament  as  have 
been  applied  to  the  Old  Testament :   what  I  object  to  is 


124     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

the  a  priori  assumption  that  the  results  of  these  pro- 
cesses ought  to  be,  or  necessarily  will  be,  similar  in 
both  cases. 

Ill 

This  point,  again,  that  I  have  just  been  discussing  is, 
I  suppose,  only  a  verbal  one.  I  do  not  imagine  that  you 
wish  to  prescribe  '  Liberal '  conclusions  beforehand,  to  be 
arrived  at  by  the  critic,  any  more  than  I  should  wish  to 
prescribe  '  orthodox  '  conclusions  to  the  critic,  as  such. 
Perhaps  I  might  say  a  few  words  about  the  relation  which, 
in  my  view,  the  personal  convictions  of  the  critic  ought  to 
bear  to  the  exercise  of  his  functions  as  critic,  for  the 
purpose  of  clearing  up  any  obscurities  which  may  arise. 
I  approach  the  New  Testament  documents,  being  myself 
already  possessed  of  and  beUeving  in  the  CathoUc  Faith. 
If  I  am  going  to  use  the  sacred  text  for  devotional  or 
homiletic  purposes,  I  keep  my  Faith  well  in  the  forefront 
of  my  mind,  and  endeavour  to  relate  every  thought  and 
aspiration  of  the  inspired  writers  to  the  eternal  verities 
which  the  Church  has  taught  me.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
I  am  purposing  to  handle  the  documents,  not  as  a  Chris- 
tian priest  or  preacher,  but  merely  as  a  critical  student, 
I  endeavour  as  far  as  I  can  to  keep  my  Faith  at  the  back 
of  my  mind — to  abstract  my  intellectual  activities  from 
the  influence  of  the  Faith  which  I  do  as  a  matter  of 
fact  hold — to  judge  questions  of  textual  authenticity  and 
historical  fact  simply  on  the  evidence,  with  as  near  an 
approximation  to  unbiased  impartiaUty  as  I  can  attain 
to.  Having  arrived  at  my  historical  conclusions,  I  should 
then  compare  them  with  the  historical  statements  to 
which  the  Faith  commits  me  ;  if  the  former  were  to  appear 
prima  facie  contradictory  to  the  latter,  I  should  retrace 
my  steps,  and  go  over  my  chain  of  reasoning  again,  testing 
each  link,  and  endeavouring  to  find  a  weak  place  ;  and  if 
I  were  to  find  that  the  contradiction  could  not  by  any 
means  be  removed — that  the  historical  statements  of  the 


3Ir.  N.  P.   Williams  III  125 

Faith  proved  to  be  in  opposition  to  absolutely  certain 
facts — then  I  should  without  hesitation  renounce  a  Faith 
which  I  had  found  to  be  untrue. 

IV 

I  had  not  wished  to  be  drawn  into  a  discussion  on  the 
subject  of  Miracles,  as  I  have  already  expressed  my 
opinions  on  this  question  elsewhere.  Moreover,  I  did  not 
wish  to  trespass  on  the  ground  of  your  debate  with  the 
Dean  of  Christ  Church.  But  the  argument  seems  to  have 
drifted,  by  a  sort  of  inevitable  necessity,  in  that  direction, 
so  that  I  am  constrained  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject 
before  our  correspondence  closes. 

Let  me  briefly  resume  the  situation,  as  I  understand  it. 
In  my  second  letter  (p.  85),  I  designated,  as  one  of  the  two 
root-differences  which  divide  us,  a  divergence  of  opinion 
as  to  the  intrinsic  possibility  or  probability  of  certain 
miracles.  I  had  gathered  from  your  original  paper  that, 
whilst  not  wishing  to  deny  the  possibility  of  '  miracle  '  in 
general,  you  had  felt  that  an  '  imperious  necessity  '  com- 
pelled you  to  '  abstain  from  affirming  '  two  particular 
miracles,  namely,  the  alleged  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  from 
a  maiden,  and  His  alleged  corporeal  Resurrection  from 
the  tomb.  This  '  imperious  necessity ',  you  contend,  is 
rooted  in  the  fact  that  these  two  wonders  would  be  defi- 
nitely contra,  and  not  merely  supra,  naturam.  I  ventured 
to  hint  (in  my  second  letter)  that  I  had  really  not  an  idea 
as  to  what  you  meant  by  the  words  'contra',  'supra',  and 
'  natura  ',  Perhaps  I  may  now  be  permitted  to  examine 
the  reply  contained  in  your  last  communication. 


You  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  your  object  in  drawing 
the  distinction  between  supra  naturam  and  contra  naturam 
miracles  was  '  not  scientific,  but  practical ' — and  that  you 
thought  that  the  distinction  '  would  convey  a  sufficiently 


126     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  IVadition 

clear  meaning  to  ordinary  people '.  I  do  not  know  whe- 
ther those  who  think  with  me  can  claim  to  be  '  ordinary 
people  '  :  but  I  am  afraid  I  must  say  that  we  are  not  to 
be  converted  by  language  of  a  merely  '  practical '  nature. 
If  we  are  to  drop,  or  consider  the  possibihty  of  dropping, 
beliefs  on  which  our  whole  lives  have  hitherto  been  built, 
we  must  be  constrained  thereto  by  the  most  indubitable 
and  undeniable  facts,  or  by  reasoning  of  an  absolutely 
stringent  and  rigorous  character,  based  upon  indubitable 
facts.  We  can  only  be  evicted  from  our  trenches  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet. 

This,  however,  is  merely  by  the  way,  and  I  must  proceed 
to  consider  the  definition  of  '  nafura  '  which  you  supply  in 
your  last  letter.  You  say  '  By  "  nature  "  I  meant  what 
are  commonly  called  "  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion  "  ' 
(p.  99)  :  and  I  presume  that  when,  later  on,  you  speak  of 
*  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  '  and  '  the  natural  order  ' 
(p.  100),  the  word  '  nature  '  is  meant  to  be  understood  in 
the  same  sense. 

When  I  read  this  definition  ('  nature  =  the  laws  of 
matter  and  motion  ')  I  seemed  instantaneously  to  see 
a  whole  train  of  impUcations  flowing  from  it,  which, 
I  imagine,  you  would  be  very  loth  to  accept.  In  order, 
however,  to  avoid  any  suspicion  of  an  unfair  use  of  your 
words,  I  took  the  liberty  of  submitting  this  part  of  your 
argument  to  a  distinguished  philosophical  teacher  in  this 
University,  and  asked  him,  'What  would  you  understand 
by  "  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion  ?  "  '  He  repUed, 
'  I  should  naturally  take  this  to  mean  "  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry  "  ' ;  and  this  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
meaning  which  I  had  at  first  sight  attached  to  the  phrase. 
If,  then,  your  language  is  to  be  taken  at  its  face  value,  it 
would  seem  that  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  con- 
stitute the  criterion  whereby  the  credibihty  of  particular 
miracles  is  to  be  judged.  But,  if  this  position  is  to  be 
taken  as  axiomatic,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  its  conse- 
quences are  somewhat  far-reaching.     If  capacity  for  being 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  127 

explained  by  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  is  the 
criterion  for  judging  of  the  reality  of  '  miracles ',  a  fortiori 
it  must  be  the  criterion  for  judging  of  the  reality  of  all 
alleged  events  whatsoever.  Because  a  '  miracle  '  (on  your 
showing)  is  merely  a  '  wonder  '  (p.  99)  which  lies  '  outside 
the  common  order '  (ibid.) — that  is,  presumably,  outside 
the  usual  experience  of  mankind.  But  this  simply  means 
that  a  '  miracle  '  is  a  surprising  event.  Now  the  term 
'  surprising  '  is  clearly  a  relative  term  :  events  may  be 
surprising  to  one  man  which  are  not  surprising  to  another. 
The  passage  of  an  aeroplane  across  the  sky,  which  awakens 
no  amazement  in  the  breast  of  a  modern  European,  would 
occasion  the  extremest  surprise  and  astonishment  to  an 
Andaman  islander.  Clearly,  then,  the  '  surprisingness  '  of 
a  miracle  is  not  something  inherent  in  the  miracle  ;  it  is 
a  '  separable  accident ',  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
TL  Tfv  eTvai  of  the  miracle  itself. 

Consequently,  if  '  explicability  by  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry '  is  the  test  of  reality  in  the  case  of  alleged 
'  miracles  '  or  '  surprising  '  events,  it  can  only  be  because 
it  is  the  test  of  reality  in  the  case  of  all  alleged  events 
whatsoever. 

VI 

But  when  we  have  reached  this  point  in  the  process 
of  tracing  out  the  impHcations  of  your  identification  of 
*  nature '  with  '  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion ',  it  would 
seem  that  we  can  no  longer  avoid  conclusions  which  are 
utterly  fatal  to,  and  destructive  of,  religion  in  general,  and 
the  Christian  religion  in  particular.  For  if  the  real  is  that, 
and  that  only,  which  is  expUcable  by  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry,  what  becomes  of  personaUty,  thought, 
rehgious  experience,  consciousness,  and  life  itself  ?  They 
are  mere  epiphenomena,  mere  aspects  of  physical  and 
chemical  processes  which  presumably  have  no  substantive 
existence  apart  from  those  processes.  We  seem  landed 
in  an  iron  materialism,  in  which^all  modes  of  spiritual 


128     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

existence  appear  to  be  nothing  but  ways  of  describing 
the  blind,  purposeless  clash  of  coUiding  atoms.  The  con- 
ceptions of  free  self-determining  personality  and  of  a  life 
beyond  the  grave  would  seem  to  be  decisively  excluded  : 
how  can  the  '  soul ',  if  it  is  merely  a  name  for  certain 
aspects  of  a  physico-chemical  process,  persist  in  isolation 
when  that  process  has  come  to  end  ?  How  can  an '  aspect ' 
survive  the  dissolution  of  the  substantive  reaHty  whereof 
it  is  an  aspect  ? 

I  am  quite  sure  that  you  would  repudiate  such  a  me- 
chanistic WeltanscJiauung  as  heartily  as  I  should  myself  : 
indeed,  you  have  done  so  in  your  original  paper  (p.  18). 
But  it  seems  to  be  irresistibly  imphed  in  the  setting  up 
of  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  as  the  ultimate 
criterion  of  reahty  in  respect  of  '  surprising  events '.  I 
must  therefore  have  been  wrong  in  my  prima  facie  assump- 
tion that  by  your  phrase  '  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion ' 
you  meant  '  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry '.  But,  if 
this  is  so,  I  have  not  the  least  idea  what  you  mean  by 
'  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion',  and  am,  therefore,  just 
as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever  about  the  sense  in  which  you 
are  using  the  word  '  natura '.  The  fault  is  doubtless  mine  : 
but  I  am  afraid  I  must  say  that,  in  defining  '  natura  '  as 
'  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion '  you  have  (so  far  as  I  am 
concerned)  merely  defined  ignotum  'per  ignotius. 

VII 

It  is  possible,  however,  that  you  might  reply  to  this 
argument  as  follows  : — 

'  Not  so  fast.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  by  "  the  laws  of 
matter  and  motion  "  I  meant  the  laws  of  physics  and 
chemistry,  or  the  laws  of  physics  only.  But  you  are  not 
justified  in  assuming  that  I  regard  "  complete  expHca- 
bihty  by  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  "  as  the 
criterion  of  reahty  in  the  case  of  "  surprising  events  ". 
I  did  not  say  that  "  surprising  events  ",  in  order  to  be 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  129 

accepted  as  having  really  happened,  must  prove  that  they 
are  susceptible  of  a  complete  explanation  by  these  laws  : 
I  merely  said  that  they  must  not  involve  a  breach  of  these 
laws.  It  is  quite  possible  for  a  phenomenon  to  be  only 
partially  explicable  in  physical  or  chemical  terms,  without, 
nevertheless,  contradicting  the  well-ascertained  laws  of  the 
universe  which  are  embodied  in  the  sciences  of  physics  and 
chemistry.'  But  is  it  ?  Let  us  briefly  examine  the  mean- 
ing of  these  terms  '  breach  '  and  '  contradiction  '. 

VIII 

I  hope  I  shall  not  be  suspected  of  purely  verbal  quib- 
bling if  I  say  that  I  am  not  at  aU  certain  what  is  meant  by 
a  '  breach  '  or  a  '  contradiction  '  of  '  the  laws  of  matter 
and  motion',  for  the  purposes  of  rigorous  reasoning.  I 
have  suggested  one  possible  meaning  for  the  phrase  '  an 
event  involving  a  "  breach  "  of  the  laws  of  matter  and 
motion  ' — namely,  '  an  event  which  is  not  completely 
exphcable  in  terms  of  physics  and  chemistry  '  :  but,  as 
I  have  just  said,  this  is  evidently  not  your  meaning. 
I  know  well  enough  what  is  meant  by  a  '  breach  '  of  the 
laws  of  England  :  it  means,  roughly,  disobedience  to 
a  command  of  the  Legislature.  But  I  need  not  remind 
you  that  '  the  laws  of  nature  '  are  not  '  laws  '  in  the 
juridical  sense  :  they  are  statements  of  what  is,  not  of 
what  ought  to  be  :  they  are  existential  propositions,  not 
commands  or  '  value- judgements  '.  Now  a  '  contradic- 
tion '  of  an  existential  proposition  would  presumably 
mean  what  is  known  in  formal  logic  as  its  '  contrary ',  or 
its  'contradictory'.  For  instance,  the  'law  of  gravita- 
tion '  states  that  '  All  material  bodies  attract  each  other 
with  a  force  varying  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  dis- 
tance '.  The  contrary  of  this  would  be  '  No  material 
bodies  attract  each  other,  &c.  .  .  ',  and  the  contradictory 
would  be  '  Some  material  bodies  do  not  attract  each  other, 
&c.  .  .  '.     An  event,  therefore,  which  '  involved  a  breach 

K 


I 


130     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

of '  the  law  of  gravitation,  would  be  an  event,  belief  in 
which  would  commit  us  to  the  acceptance  either  of  the 
proposition  '  No  material  bodies  attract  each  other,  &c.' 
or  of  the  proposition  '  Some  material  bodies  do  not  attract 
each  other'.  Now  I  should  contend  that  no  such  event 
is  recorded,  either  in  Holy  Scripture,  or  in  the  lives  of  the 
saints,  or  even  in  the  wildest  records  of  hagiographical 
imagination.  I  know  of  no  alleged  '  miracle '  which 
necessarily  involves  a  '  contradiction ',  in  this  sense,  of  the 
law  of  gravitation. 

This  may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  a  somewhat  startling 
assertion,  in  view  of  the  innumerable  stories  of  '  levita- 
tion  '  which  occur  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  subsequent  ecclesiastical  history.  But  I  must 
repeat  that  no  alleged  instance  of '  levitation ',  in  itself,  and 
necessarily,  involves  a  '  breach  '  or  '  contradiction  '  of  the 
law  of  gravitation.  Perhaps  a  parable  will  help  me  to 
explain  what  I  mean. 

IX 

Suppose  that  I  were  to  relate  the  following  anecdote  to 
a  Modernist  theologian.  '  The  other  day,  I  was  present 
at  a  cricket  match,  and  witnessed  a  curious  phenomenon. 
Jones  was  batting.  A  slow  ball  came  along  :  Jones 
stepped  out  from  his  crease,  and  smote  with  all  his  might. 
From  the  surface  of  his  bat  the  ball  soared  away  in  a  grace- 
ful parabola  :  it  reached  the  summit  of  its  trajectory,  and 
dipped  downward  towards  the  earth.  However,  when  it 
arrived  at  a  point  about  five  feet  from  the  ground,  it 
stopped  dead,  and  remained  suspended  motionless  in  the 
air.'  If  my  supposed  theologian  was  an  exceptionally 
unsuspicious  person,  he  might  perhaps  retort  '  Nonsense. 
Your  story  is  on  the  face  of  it  untrue.  "  Imperious 
necessity  "  compels  me  to  reject  it  ;  for  the  supposition 
of  a  ball  stopping  dead  in  the  air  whilst  falling  towards  the 
earth  would  involve  a  breach  or  contradiction  of  the  law 
of  gravitation — it  would  be  contra  naturam.'     To  which 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  131 

I  might  reply  '  Well,  this  event,  of  which  you  deny  the 
possibihty,  certainly  happened.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
ball  was  caught  by  one  of  the  fielding  side.  The  law  of 
gravitation  was  not  "broken"  or  repealed  when  "  mid- 
ofiE  "  caught  the  ball  in  its  flight  towards  the  earth  :  the 
earth  did  not  suddenly  cease  to  exert  the  force  of  its 
attraction  upon  the  ball :  what  happened  was  that  this 
force  was  counteracted  and  neutralized  by  an  opposing 
force,  exerted  by  the  muscles  of  "  mid-off's  "  hand  upon 
the  surface  of  the  ball :  and  this  latter  opposing  force, 
though  it  may  be  partially  explicable  in  physical  or 
chemical  terms,  was  set  in  motion  by  a  purely  spiritual 
cause,  namely,  the  will  of  Robinson  to  "  catch  "  Jones 
"  out  ".'  There  is,  therefore,  nothing  inherently  impos- 
sible about  the  conception  of  a  natural  force  being  tem- 
porarily neutralized  or  counteracted  by  other  forces  set  in 
motion  by  spiritual  causes  :  it  is  a  thing  which  happens 
every  day,  which  we  ourselves  are  perpetually  bringing  to 
pass  in  all  our  dealing  with  and  handhng  of  the  material 
world, 

'  Quite  so,'  perhaps  you  will  say  ;  '  I  quite  admit  that 
the  operation  of  natural  forces  can  be  suspended  or  inter- 
fered with  by  spiritual  causes,  whether  human  or  super- 
human, and  instances  of  such  suspension  or  interference 
are  exactly  what  I  mean  by  supra  Tiaturam  events.  What 
I  deny  is  the  possibility  that  natural  forces  could  be,  not 
merely  transcended  or  superseded,  but  actually  abohshed 
or  annihilated,  even  though  such  abolition  or  annihilation 
were  alleged  to  have  been  merely  temporary.  Alleged 
events  of  this  nature  are  what  I  should  describe  as  contra 
naturam '.     Let  me  for  a  moment  consider  this  position. 

Our  Divine  Saviour  is  said  in  the  Gospels  on  one  occa- 
sion to  have  walked  or  moved,  in  His  physical  body, 
across  and  above  the  surface  of  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret : 
and  the  same  is  recorded  of  several  Christian  saints  in 
later  centuries,  such  as  St.  Hyacinth  of  Poland  and  St. 
Raymund  of  Pennafort.     I  imagine  that  I  should  not  be 

K2 


132     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

acting  unfairly  if  I  were  to  assume  that  you  would  stamp 
these  alleged  events  without  more  ado  as  contra  naturam. 
But  are  they  ?  I  am  not,  for  the  moment,  discussing  the 
question  whether  they  really  happened  :  I  am  simply 
concerned  to  inquire  whether,  if  they  happened,  they 
would  have  involved  the  (temporary)  annihilation,  or 
merely  the  neutralization,  of  natural  forces.  And  it  is 
clear  (at  any  rate  to  my  mind)  that  these  alleged  events 
do  not  necessarily  involve  more  than  the  counteraction 
of  natural  forces  by  spiritual  forces,  or  by  other  natural 
forces  set  in  motion  by  spiritual  causes.  Suppose,  for  the 
moment,  that  our  Lord  did  walk  upon  the  waters  :  it 
would  not  be  necessary  to  assume  that  the  force  of  the 
earth's  attraction  ceased  to  exist  so  far  as  His  Body  was 
concerned  :  it  would  be  quite  as  easy  to  say  that  this  force 
was  counteracted  and  neutralized  by  spiritual  energies 
belonging  to  the  unseen  world,  or  by  natural  forces  set 
in  motion  by  such  energies.  The  case  would  be  exactly 
analogous  to  that  of  the  cricket  ball,  except  that  the 
spiritual  cause  which  neutrahzed  the  force  of  the  earth's 
attraction  would  be  superhuman,  and  not  merely  human. 
In  other  words,  the  alleged  miracle  of  the  walking  upon 
the  water  can  quite  reasonably  be  represented  as  supra 
naturam. 

But,  if  this  is  so,  a  consequence  of  considerable  logical 
importance  foUows,  which  I  will  endeavour  to  explain. 

In  the  foregoing  discussion,  I  have  taken  the  example  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  alleged  miracles  of  levita- 
tion,  because  these  miracles  were  adduced  by  you  in  your 
original  paper  as  instances  of  contra  naturam  events  which 
could  and  should  be  dogmatically  condemned  a  priori 
(p.  16  :  '  We  are  convinced  that  life  in  New  Testament 
times  was  not  conducted  as  if  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  dark 
seance.  We  are  convinced  that  bodies  in  those  days  did 
not  float  in  the  air  or  materiaHze  and  demateriaUze  at 
will ').  But  the  same  line  of  reasoning  seems  to  hold  good 
with  regard  to  all  the  alleged  events  which  I  understand 


\ 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  133 

that  you  would  stamp  as  contra  naturam.  Multiplications 
of  food,  bilocations,  resuscitations  of  the  dead — all  could 
be  represented  as  involving,  not  the  '  contradiction  '  of 
natural  laws,  but  their  temporary  supersession  by  super- 
natural laws.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  alleged  wonder 
recorded  in  Holy  Scripture  and  the  lives  of  the  saints 
which  might  not  be  explained,  with  a  little  ingenuity,  as 
involving — not  the  annihilation  of  natural  forces,  but 
— their  counteraction  and  neutralization  by  spiritual 
forces,  or  by  other  natural  forces  set  in  motion  by  spiritual 
causes.  (Let  me  say  again,  in  order  to  avoid  misunder- 
standing, that  I  am  very  far  from  asserting  that  all  these 
alleged  wonders  did  actually  happen  :  I  am  merely  con- 
tending in  the  abstract  that  the  hypothesis  of  their  having 
happened  would  not  necessarily  and  inherently  involve 
the  hypothesis  of  a  '  contradiction '  of  '  the  laws  of 
nature '.)  Even  the  most  fantastic  products  of  hagio- 
graphical  fancy  need  not  necessarily  be  described  as 
inherently  contra  naturam,  for  it  could  always  be  contended 
by  the  hagiographer  that  the  particular  wonder  proposed 
by  him  for  our  acceptance  was  merely  an  instance  of  the 
neutralization  and  not  of  the  annihilation  of  natural  forces. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  even  '  Joshua's  moon  in  Ajalon ', 
or  the  flying  house  of  Loretto,  could  be  represented  in  this 
way,  were  it  worth  anybody's  while  to  do  so. 

If,  then,  the  term  '  contra  '  is  understood  in  the  sense 
which  I  have  affixed  to  it,  it  would  seem  that  there  are 
literally  no  alleged  miracles,  not  even  the  most  outrageous, 
which  can  be  pronounced  at  once  and  without  more  ado 
as  '  contra  naturam '  {natura  being  understood  as  =  the 
laws  of  physics  and  chemistry).  All  alleged  miracles, 
it  would  seem,  are  only  supra  naturam,  and  the  contra 
naturam  test  seems  to  fall  to  the  ground.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  my  interpretation  of  the  word  contra  is  incorrect, 
I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to  know  what  is  the  true  interpre- 
tation. 


134     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 


X 

Perhaps  I  may  summarize  the  above  criticism  of  yom* 
position  as  follows  : — 

1.  You  object  to  alleged  '  miracles  '  which  are  '  contra, 

and  not  merely  supra ',  naturam. 
I  inquire  what  you  mean  by  these  terms. 

2.  You  reply  that  by  natura  you  mean  '  the  laws  of 

matter  and  motion '  (but  you  omit  to  explain  what 
you  mean  by  supra  and  contra — which  is  the  real 
point). 

3.  I  naturally  take  '  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion '  to 

mean  '  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry  ' — at 
least,  if  the  phrase  does  not  mean  this,  I  do  not 
know  what  it  means. 

4.  Assuming,  however,  that  this  identification  is  correct 

('  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion  = '  the  laws  of 
physics  and  chemistry ' )  I  am  still  not  certain 
what  is  meant  by  the  preposition  contra  or  the  verb 
'  to  contradict ',  in  reference  to  '  natura  '  or  '  the 
laws  of  matter  and  motion '. 

5.  The  first  idea  that  occurs  to  me  is  that  by  '  an  alleged 

event  which  contradicts  the  laws  of  matter  and 
motion  (i.  e.  of  physics  and  chemistry) '  you  mean 
an  event  which  is  not  completely  and  exhaustively 
exphcable  in  terms  of  those  Laws.  A  httle  con- 
sideration, however,  shows  me  that  this  cannot  be 
so,  inasmuch  as  it  would  presuppose  a  thorough- 
going Materialism  which  I  am  very  sure  that  you 
do  not  hold. 

6.  I  must  therefore  conclude  that  by  an  alleged  event 

which  '  contradicts '  the  law  specified  above  you 
mean  an  event  which  could  only  have  happened  if 
the  natural  forces,  of  which  these  laws  are  com- 
pendious and  more  or  less  imperfect  descriptions, 
had  been  (temporarily)  abolished  or  annihilated. 
But  I  am  then  faced  with  the  difficulty  that  no 


3fr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  135 

alleged  miracles,  not  even  those  which  I  should 
hold  to  be  most  inconsistent  with  the  revealed 
character  of  God,  seem  to  be  in  this  sense  contra 
naturam  :  there  is  no  alleged  wonder,  however 
grotesque,  which  could  not  be  represented  as 
involving,  not  the  annihilation,  but  the  neutraliza- 
tion of  natural  forces. 
7.  It  would  seem  to  follow  that  the  distinction  between 
supra  naturam  and  contra  naturam  is  solely  a 
difference  of  terminology  :  every  alleged  super- 
human interference,  and  indeed  every  actual 
human  interference,  with  the  operation  of  mechani- 
cal laws,  could  equally  well  be  described  from  one 
point  of  view  as  supra  and  from  another  point  of 
view  as  contra  nxituram.  Consequently,  if  we  are 
willing  to  follow  the  argument  whithersoever  it 
leads,  the  attempt  to  label  some  alleged  miracles 
as  supra  naturam  and  others  as  contra  naturam 
would  appear  to  be  purely  arbitrary. 

A  few  words  may  now  be  devoted  to  another  possible 
definition  of  '  contra  naturam  events ',  which  might  be 
inferred  from  your  language  on  p.  100.  Speaking  of 
'  well-attested  '  and  '  supra  naturam  events  '  you  say  that 
such  events  have  all  had  '  analogies  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  nature  '  ;  it  might,  therefore,  be  concluded  that  you 
would  define  '  contra  naturam  events  '  as  events  which 
have  no  analogies  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature.  But 
what  is  an  '  analogy  '  ?  As  used  in  ordinary  speech,  the 
term  '  analogy  '  is  one  of  the  vaguest  words  in  the  English 
language.  I  doubt  whether  it  can  be  taken  to  mean  more 
than  a  vague  sort  of  resemblance  or  similarity.  And  again, 
it  would,  I  think,  be  difficult  to  quote  an  instance  of  an 
alleged  miracle  for  which  an  '  analogy  ',  in  the  sense  of  an 
event  bearing  some  sort  of  hazy  resemblance  or  parallelism 


I 


136     Form  and  Content  in  Christiaii  Tradition 

to  it,  could  not  be  discovered  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
nature.  If  this  kind  of  argument  has  any  real  value,  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  produce  '  analogies  '  from  nature 
to  'parthenogenesis  and  the  production  of  new  life  out  of 
death.  No  doubt  you  remember  the  late  Prof.  Drum- 
mond's  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  which  was 
devoted  to  the  development  of  just  such  an  analogical 
argument  in  favour  of  the  Gospel  miracles.  I  never  could 
discern  very  much  weight  in  this  contention,  though  it  was 
designed  to  support  the  conclusions  which  I  should  wish  to 
advocate  ;  nor  do  I  find  any  more  weight  in  it  if  it  is 
turned  against  those  conclusions.  Why  should  not  the 
Almighty,  in  the  course  of  His  extraordinary  deaUngs  with 
mankind,  perform  actions  to  which  no  exact  parallel  can 
be  found  in  His  ordinary  operations  in  nature  ?  I  entirely 
agree  with  your  observation  on  p.  101,  '  The  evidence  for 
this  kind  of  regularity  '  [i.  e.  what  is  commonly  called  the 
'  uniformity  of  nature  '] '  is  so  overwhelming  that  I  cannot 
help  regarding  the  will  that  finds  expression  in  it  as  deeply 
rooted  in  the  character  of  God  Himself  '  :  but  I  see  no 
reason  why  this  element  in  the  character  of  God  should 
be  held  to  exclude  the  possibUity  of  His  possessing  those 
quahties  which  in  human  beings  we  should  call  originaUty, 
the  faculty  of  initiative,  the  power  of  making  fresh  depar- 
tures. Stability  of  character  and  the  power  of  initiative 
are  not  incompatible  in  men  ;  why  should  they  be  thought 
so  in  the  case  of  God  ? 


XII 

Perhaps  you  may  think  that  I  have  devoted  a  dispro- 
portionate amount  of  space  to  this  particular  question, 
especially  as  (to  judge  from  your  language  on  p.  101)  you 
would  not  wish  to  rest  the  main  weight  of  your  argument 
against  the  Gospel  miracles  upon  a  priori  considerations. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  ground  would  be  cleared  for 
any  future  discussion  if  it  could  be  agreed  that  the  dis- 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  137 

tinction  between  contra  naturam  and  supra  naturam 
miracles  is,  as  you  say,  '  popular,  and  not  scientific  '  :  and 
that  consequently  it  would  not  be  illegitimate  to  found 
upon  this  distinction  any  argument  adverse  to  the  parti- 
cular miracles  which  happened  to  have  been  labelled  as 
contra  naturam. 

XIII 

For  these  reasons  I  am  unable  to  find  very  much  cogency 
in  the  a  priori  part  of  your  argument  against  the  Gospel 
miracles,  understood  in  the  traditional  way.  I  quite 
admit  that  as  a  matter  of  psychological  fact  the  observed 
regularity  of  nature  does  create  in  the  normal  human 
mind  a  real  praeiudicium  (though,  as  I  should  contend, 
a  praeiudicium  which  should  be  frankly  recognized  as 
provisional)  against  the  historicity  of  any  supposed  events 
which  would  involve  the  supersession  of  natural  forces 
by  causes  belonging  to  an  alleged  spiritual  world  ;  but, 
if  we  are  wilHng  to  remember  that 

There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy, 

such  a  praeiudicium  cannot  be  described  as  overwhelming, 
or  sufficient  to  condemn  a  particular  miracle  even  before 
the  a  posteriori  evidence  for  it  has  been  heard.  I  do  not 
think  that  any  one  would  be  justified  (unless,  indeed,  he 
started  from  avowedly  materialistic  and  atheistic  pre- 
suppositions) in  doing  more  than  '  pencilling  a  note  of 
interrogation  in  the  margin  '  of  the  record  of  an  alleged 
event  of  this  nature,  and  passing  on.  The  only  a  priori 
test  which,  in  my  opinion,  can  be  reasonably  employed  to 
condemn  alleged  miracles  without  more  ado — which 
justifies  us  in  refusing  even  to  consider  the  evidence  for 
them — is  that  of  consonance  with  what  we  believe  (on 
other  grounds)  to  be  the  character  of  God.  You  have  said, 
in  another  connexion,  that  '  we  never  can  know  before- 
hand what  God  will  do  and  what  He  will  not  do  '  (p.  113)  : 
but  is  not  this,  perhaps,  a  little  too  sweeping  ?  We  should 


138     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

both  agree,  I  imagine,  that  He  is  not  likely  to  work  absurd, 
trivial,  or  immoral  miracles.  It  is  this  consideration 
which  justifies  us  in  ruHng  out  of  court  at  once  such  stories 
as  that  of  the  Virgin  taking  the  place  of  the  runaway  nun, 
or  the  parrot,  who,  when  pursued  by  a  hawk,  screamed 
out '  Sancte  Thoma  or  a  'pro  nobis ',  with  the  result  that  his 
pursuer  fell  dead.  For  beUevers  in  the  Christian  God  this 
criterion  approaches  as  nearly  to  absolute  cogency  as  any 
a  priori  test  can  :  though  of  course  there  may  be  a  large 
field  of  alleged  wonders,  in  regard  to  which  we  cannot  feel 
certain  whether  or  not  they  are  too  trivial  for  Almighty 
God  to  have  worked.  This  last  consideration  would,  how- 
ever, not  apply  to  the  crucial  miracles  of  the  Gospel 
(i.  e.  the  Virgin  Birth,  Resurrection,  and  Ascension)  which, 
whether  true  or  not,  are  clearly  not  trivial  or  unimportant. 

I  have  said  before  that  if  I  approached  the  considera- 
tion of  the  Gospel  miracles,  believing  generally  in  God, 
but  without  any  further  presuppositions,  I  do  not  think 
I  should  be  justified  in  condemning  them  off-hand  as 
legends  :  what  I  should  do  would  be  '  to  pencil  a  note  of 
interrogation  in  the  margin,  and  pass  on'.  You  may 
say, '  But  that  is  exactly  what  I  am  doing  :  I  do  not  con- 
demn, or  deny,  these  miracles  :  I  merely  label  them  with 
a  query  and  devote  myself  to  affirming  the  other  parts  of 
the  Christian  creed  which  do  not  seem  to  require  any  such 
labelling '.  To  which  I  may  reply,  quite  frankly  :  '  Quite 
so  :  I  should  do  exactly  the  same,  but  for  my  fundamental 
postulate  of  the  "  infalHbihty  of  the  Church  "  ' — which 
I  will  proceed  to  discuss  presently. 

Before  doing  this,  however,  I  must  devote  a  few  Hues  to 
what  you  claim  (on  p.  101)  as  having  been,  for  you,  '  the 
really  determining  trains  of  argument ' — namely,  '  those 
which  have  come  from  the  side  of  history  and  criticism  or 
from  that  of  psychology.'  Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted, 
for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  brevity,  to  employ  once  more 
the  method  of  first  summarizing  your  contentions  and 
then  commenting  on  them. 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williamfi  HI  139 

XIV 

If   I  understand   it   rightly,  your   argument  runs   as 
follows  : — 

1.  In  the  case  of  Old  Testament  miracles,  there  is  no 

'  authentic  first-hand  testimony  '  for  the  reality  of 
details  which  would  have  involved  '  a  real  contra- 
diction of  the  laws  of  nature  '  ;  in  other  words,  for 
*  contra  naturam  '  miracles.  All  the  records  which 
we  possess  were  written  many  years  or  centuries 
after  the  events  :  and  there  is  a  strong  probability 
in  the  nature  of  things  that  legendary  details  would 
creep  in.  The  occurrence  of  '  contra  naturam ' 
miracles  in  Old  Testament  times  is,  therefore,  not 
proven. 

2.  A  similar  line  of  reasoning  may  be  applied  to  the 

miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  '  The  first-class 
evidence,  that  of  St.  Paul's  epistles,  is  available 
only  for  miracles  of  the  first  order  ' — i.  e.  supra 
naturam  miracles.  In  the  case  of  alleged  contra 
naturam  details,  although  the  interval  between  the 
occurrence  of  the  facts  and  the  composition  of  the 
records  was  not  so  great  as  in  the  Old  Testament, 
there  was  nevertheless  ample  time  for  the  growth 
of  legendary  accretions,  in  the  process  of  oral,  and 
even  of  literary,  transmission  of  the  narratives. 
The  occurrence  of  genuinely  contra  naturam 
miracles  in  New  Testament  times,  as  in  Old  Testa- 
ment times,  is,  accordingly,  not  proven. 

3.  If,    however,    the    occurrence    of    contra    naturam 

miracles  cannot  be  demonstrated  either  in  the  Old 
or  in  the  New  Testaments,  and  if  it  is  possible  to 
explain  the  narratives  of  them  as  due  to  the  uncon- 
scious operation  of  mythopoeic  imagination,  such 
an  explanation  becomes  invested  with  a  high 
degree  of  probability  ;  in  fact  '  we  have  no  doubt 
in  our  own  minds  that,  of  the  two  hypotheses — 


140     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

that  these  things  really  happened,  and  that  they 
came  to  be  thought  to  have  happened  on  the  basis 
of  widely  prevalent  ideas — the  latter  is  by  far  the 
more  probable  '  (p.  16). 

XV 

The  first  and  most  obvious  comment  which  I  have  to 
make  upon  this  reasoning  is  that  it  presupposes,  all 
through,  the  distinction  between  supra  naturam  and 
contra  naturam  miracles  which  you  claim  to  derive  from 
the  a  priori  part  of  your  argument.  This  distinction  is 
really  the  foundation-stone  upon  which  the  successive 
tiers  of  your  argument  ultimately  rest.  But,  as  I  have 
explained  just  now,  I  am  not  able  to  accept  this  distinc- 
tion. I  cannot  admit  any  difference,  in  respect  of  prin- 
ciple, between  the  Healing  of  the  Blind,  the  Raising  of  the 
Dead,  and  Walking  on  the  Sea.  For  me,  there  is  only  one 
kind,  or  one  '  order ',  of  alleged  miracles.  By  a  '  miracle ' 
I  mean  an  event  which  involves  the  counteraction  or 
neutralization  of  natural  forces  by  causes  belonging  to  the 
spiritual  world — an  event  which  may  be  indifferently 
described  as  contra  or  as  supra  nxituram.  Consequently, 
the  chain  of  reasoning  by  which  you  justify  your  charac- 
teristic position,  i.  e.  that  which  permits  you  to  accept 
some  miracles  and  reject  others,  has  no  cogency  for  me. 

XVI 

Suppose,  however,  that  for  '  contra  naturam  miracles  ' 
we  substitute  throughout  your  argument  '  miracles  in 
general '  :  even  in  this  form  the  argument  would  in  my 
opinion  still  fall  short  of  formal  cogency. 

Because  the  '  mythological  hypothesis  '  would  still  be 
only  an  hypothesis,  in  a  great  many  cases.  In  some,  of 
course,  it  has  to  be  accepted,  because  the  alternative 
hypothesis  (viz.  that  the  alleged  miracle  really  happened) 
is,  not  merely  unproved,  but  definitely  disproved — as  in 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  141 

the  case  of  the  Flood  story.  But  nobody  has  ever  proved, 
or  presumably  ever  will  be  able  to  prove  (in  the  sense  of 
rigorously  certain  demonstration),  that  Elisha  did  not 
make  the  iron  to  swim.  It  may  be  the  case  that  the 
written  evidence  for  this  incident  dates  from  a  time  long 
after  its  alleged  occurrence,  and  that  the  narrative  looks 
suspiciously  Uke  folk-lore  :  but  the  fact  that  it  can  be 
explained  mythologically  does  not  prove,  or  demonstrate 
mathematically,  that  it  must  be  so  explained.  I  might  be 
inclined  to  say,  as  a  matter  of  subjective  feehng  and 
instinct,  that  the  mythological  explanation  was  perhaps 
the  most  probable  :  but,  from  the  point  of  view  of  strictly 
objective  and  rigorous  reasoning,  I  should  not  feel  justified 
in  dogmatically  ruling  out  the  other  explanation,  viz.  that 
the  incident  really  happened.  In  other  words,  my 
attitude  would  have  to  be  one  of  strict  agnosticism  : 
I  should  have,  as  I  said  before,  to  '  pencil  a  note  of  inter- 
rogation in  the  margin,  and  pass  on  '. 

And  this,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  the  attitude  which 
I  should  desire  to  advocate  with  regard  to  the  miracles 
recorded  in  the  Old  Testament.  A  few,  Uke  the  story  of 
a  universal  Flood,  are  definitely  known  to  be  unhistorical : 
one  or  two  others,  like  that  of  Jonah  and  the  great  fish, 
occur  in  narratives  which  we  now  know  were  not  meant 
even  by  their  authors  to  be  taken  as  history  :  a  few 
more,  Kke  the  story  of  EHjah  calling  down  fire  from 
heaven  upon  Ahaziah's  soldiery,  seem  definitely  incon- 
sistent with  the  character  of  God  as  we  know  it  from 
the  New  Testament.  But  of  the  rest,  and  particularly  of 
those  miraculous  narratives  which  cluster  round  the  great 
moments  in  the  history  of  the  Chosen  People — the  Exodus, 
the  Giving  of  the  Law,  and  the  Prophetic  movement — 
I  should  like  to  say  this  :  I  do  not  doubt  that  miracles  in 
general  did  occur  during  the  period  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  especially  at  these  crucial  points  in  the  development 
of  Israel's  life  :  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  go  to  the  stake 
for  the  exact  historicity  of  any  one  particular  miraculous 


142     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

record  precisely  as  it  stands  in  the  Old  Testament.  And 
that  represents  the  exact  amount  of  weight  which  I  should 
attach  to  the  consideration  (of  which  I  fully  admit  the 
truth)  that  a  long  space  of  time  intervened  between  the 
occurrence  of  the  events  and  the  composition  of  the 
records.  A  firm  belief  in  miracles  in  general,  and  a  disin- 
chnation  to  commit  myself  to  all  the  details  of  any  one 
miracle  in  particular — this  appears  to  me  to  be  an  attitude 
to  take  up  with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament  which  is  both 
reasonable  in  itseK  and  entirely  loyal  to  the  historical 
connexion  and  continuity  between  the  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian Ecclesiae. 

You  will  thus  see  that  the  view  which  I  should  desire  to 
advocate  with  regard  to  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  practically  very  similar  to,  if  not  theoretically  identical 
with,  that  which  you  hold  with  regard  to  certain  miracles 
of  the  New  Testament  :  and  you  may  ask,  '  Why  not 
frankly  go  forward  upon  the  same  lines  '  ?  To  which 
I  should  reply,  that  the  cases  of  the  Old  Testament 
miracles  and  of  the  Gospel  miracles  are  in  two  important 
respects  entirely  dissimilar. 

XVII 

In  the  first  place,  the  evidence  for  the  lives  and  doings 
of  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  is  infinitely  better,  and 
nearer  in  time  to  the  facts,  than  the  evidence  for  the 
doings  of  Moses  and  EUjah.  I  cannot  stay  to  elaborate 
this  thesis,  but  I  may  venture  to  remind  you  of  Mr.  Addis's 
essay  in  the  Studies  in  the  Syno'ptic  Problem,  in  which  this 
fact  is  brought  out  with  great  vividness  and  cogency. 
(I  must  observe,  in  passing,  that — daring  though  it  may 
seem  to  challenge  an  opinion  expressed  by  you  on  a  matter 
of  New  Testament  criticism — I  am  not  at  all  prepared  to 
confine  the  term  '  first-class  New  Testament  evidence  ' 
solely  to  the  '  evidence  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles '.  I  must 
needs  claim  the  major  portion  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 


Mr,  N.  P.   Williams  III  143 

and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  as '  first-class  evidence ',  not 
to  mention  the  narrative  parts  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.) 
I  think  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  contend  that,  given  the 
a  priori  possibility  of  miracles,  the  probability  of  the 
'  mythological  explanation  '  of  any  alleged  miracles  varies 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  distance  between  the  facts  and 
the  narratives.  In  other  words — given  the  a  priori  pos- 
sibiUty  of  miracles — the  nearer  the  records  are  to  the  facts, 
the  less  likely  the  mythological  explanation  becomes. 
And,  whilst  I  should  not  maintain  that  this  consideration, 
by  itself,  reduced  the  probability  of  the  '  mythological 
hypothesis  '  in  the  case  of  New  Testament  miracles  to 
vanishing  point,  or  ruled  it  out  altogether,  I  do  think  that 
it  clears  the  ground  very  considerably  for  the  '  historical 
hypothesis  '  (i.  e.  the  hypothesis  that  the  facts  actually 
happened  as  related). 

Perhaps  I  may  put  it  in  this  way.  If  I  looked  at  the 
Gospel  miracles  without  presuppositions  of  any  kind, 
I  might  still  feel  unable  to  decide  definitely  between  the 
'  historical '  and  the  '  mythological '  hypotheses  :  I  might 
still  be  constrained,  as  I  have  said  before,  to  remain  in 
a  position  of  agnosticism,  or  suspended  judgement.  But 
I  should  still  feel  that,  inasmuch  as  the  New  Testament 
records  are  very  considerably  nearer  in  time  to  the  facts 
which  they  relate  than  the  Old  Testament  records,  the 
'  historical '  hypothesis  had  a  much  greater  chance  of 
being  true  in  the  case  of  any  one  New  Testament  miracle 
than  in  the  case  of  any  one  Old  Testament  miracle. 

Of  course,  I  should  not  in  any  case  place  all  the  miracles 
of  the  New  Testament  upon  the  same  level,  in  regard  to 
their  claims  upon  the  belief  of  Christians.  For  it  is  the 
case  that,  out  of  all  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
three,  and  three  only,  are  required  by  the  Creeds — that  is, 
by  the  authority  of  the  undivided  Catholic  Church — to  be 
ex  animo  believed  and  accepted.  Given  the  following 
assumptions  (1)  a  belief  in  the  Incarnation,  (2)  the  a  priori 
possibihty  of  miracles — of  which,  as  I  have  said,  I  can  only 


144     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

recognize  one  kind,  or  order,  (3)  the  '  first-class  '  quality 
of  the  main  body  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels — I  should  say 
that  the  '  historical  explanation  '  of  the  Walking  on  the 
Sea  became  invested  with  a  high  degree  of  probability. 
I  should  say  that  the  '  mythological  explanation  '  of  this 
incident,  whilst  still  barely  possible,  was  distinctly  otiose 
and  unnecessary.  But  I  should  not  claim,  even  for  this, 
quite  the  same  degree  of  absolute  and  utter  certitude 
which  I  should  for  the  three  crucial  miracles — the  Virgin 
Birth,  the  Resurrection,  and  the  Ascension.  This  claim  is 
grounded  in  the  fact  that  these  three  wonders  are  rooted 
in  the  very  tissue  of  historic  Christianity,  as  I  conceive  it ; 
they  are  bone  of  its  bone,  and  flesh  of  its  flesh  :  the  full 
credit  of  the  '  infaUibility  of  the  Church  '  has  been  irre- 
trievably hypothecated  on  their  truth.  You  will  easily 
understand  that,  when  I  place  in  one  scale  of  the  balance 
what  I  must  needs  consider  the  extremely  frail,  conjec- 
tural, subjective,  and  precarious  reasons  for  accepting  the 
'  mythological  explanation '  of  these  things,  and  in  the 
other  scale  my  deep,  passionate,  and  overwhelming  con- 
viction that  God  would  not  have  allowed  His  Church  to 
require  (in  such  an  imperious  and  uncompromising  manner) 
from  its  members  unfeigned  assent  to  propositions  which 
were  not,  in  the  highest  and  most  inclusive  sense  of  the 
word,  true — it  is  the  latter  scale  which  descends,  and  the 
former  that  '  kicks  the  beam '. 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  145 

XVIII 

It  is  pleasant  to  pass  from  the  subject  of  Miracles, 
upon  which  discussion  seems  to  be  interminable  and  the 
possibility  of  agreement  not  yet  within  sight,  to  a  region 
in  which  the  edges  of  the  fissure  that  divides  us  seem  to 
have  been  driven  fairly  close  together — namely,  to  that 
of  the  divine  guidance  bestowed  upon  the  Church  in  its 
work  of  defining  Christian  doctrine.  Let  me  begin  this 
part  of  my  letter  by  putting  together  the  points  upon 
which  agreement  seems  to  have  been  reached. 

1.  With    regard    to    the    '  metaphysical '    doctrines, 

which,  I  suppose,  constitute  the  greater  portion 
of  the  whole  body  of  Church  doctrine,  we  agree 
to  distinguish  between  '  content '  and  '  form  '. 

2.  We  agree  that  the  content  in  these  cases  is  '  per- 

manent and  unchangeable '  (your  own  words, 
used  on  p.  2). 

3.  We  agree,  further,  that  '  the  Church  of  Christ  has 

been  divinely  guided  in  its  definitions  of  doctrine  ' 
(your  last  letter,  p.  107) — that  is,  presumably,  in 
selecting  appropriate  '  forms  '  for  the  embodiment 
of  the  contents  in  question. 

4.  Finally,  we  agree  that,  whether  these  '  forms  '  are 

'  unalterable '  or  not,  the  question  of  their  altera- 
tion, or  of  the  substitution  of  other  forms  for  them, 
does  not  now  arise,  inasmuch  as  there  is  no  one 
universally  recognized  philosophical  system  current 
to-day  and  not  current  in  the  earher  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era  (my  first  letter,  p.  39 ;  your  last,  p.  97). 
This  seems  to  represent  the  exact  extent  of  our  agree- 
ment, formulated  in  precise  and  prosaic  statements.    But 
I  should  like  to  add,  in  estimating  the  balance  between 
agreement  and  divergence,  a  certain,  less  easily  definable, 
unity  of  aim  and  sympathy,  which  comes  out  in  such 
sentences  as  the  following,  which  I  quote  from  your  last 
letter  : 

'  I  profoundly  believe  that  a  presentation  of  Christianity 


146     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

is  possible  which  shall  be  at  once  in  strict  and  full  con- 
tinuity with  the  past  and  shall  yet  be  in  complete 
harmony  with  the  most  assured  results  of  progressive 
science  in  the  present '  (p.  105). 

'  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  is  a  like  balance  between 
the  ideas  of  permanence  and  of  change  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  behef.  My  aim  is  to  maintain  an  equili- 
brium between  the  two  sides  '  (p.  106), 

*  Our  object  is,  not  to  lay  down  what  we  think  ought 
to  be  or  what  ought  not,  but  to  describe  as  truthfully 
and  exactly  as  possible  what  actually  is  '  (p.  113). 

I  must  not  stay  to  enlarge  upon  this  point,  but  it  may 
be  of  interest  to  you,  and  assist  in  the  process  of  mutual 
understanding,  if  I  say  that  I  can  heartily  subscribe  to 
every  word  of  these  sentences.  After  all,  our  object  is 
certainly  the  same,  namely,  to  present  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity ^  to  the  modern  world  in  an  intellectual  form 
which  will  not  involve  unnecessary  difficulties  {some 
difficulties  it  must  always  involve).  But  if  our  goal  is 
the  same,  and  if  our  roads  are  identical  for  a  good  part 
of  the  journey  thither,  there  is  considerable  hope  that 
we  may  be  able,  sooner  or  later,  to  arrive  at  a  working 
agreement  with  regard  to  the  remainder. 

I  must  now  proceed  to  say  a  final  word  about  our 
differences  under  this  head.  Before  doing  so,  I  should 
like  briefly  to  comment  on  one  section  of  your  last  letter 
(p.  106,  line  14  ff.).  My  remark  about  the  '  comfort ', 
which  may  be  derived  from  surrendering  oneself  to  the 
broad  deep  river  of  historical  Christianity,  was  an  dbite^ 
dictum,  not  an  argument.  I  should  never  dream  of 
attempting  to  base  the  truth  of  orthodoxy  upon  its 
'  comfort  '-producing  qualities  :  though  there  may  be 
no  harm  in  pointing  them  out  by  the  way.  Nor  do  I  see 
the  precise  application  of  your  remarks  about  the  Church 
of  Rome  (ibid.).     So  far  as  I  recollect,  I  had  not  made 

'^  I  am  justified  in  using  this  expression  by  the  fact  that  on  p.  19 
you  '  distinctly  claim  '  not  to  be  '  unorthodox  '. 


3Ir.  N.  P.  Williams  III  147 

any  reference,  direct  or  indirect,  to  that  body.  When  I 
spoke  of  'orthodox',  'traditional',  'historical',  or 
'  Catholic  '  Christianity,  I  meant  the  faith,  practice,  and 
worship  of  the  undivided  Catholic  Church  of  the  first 
thousand  years,  and  nothing  narrower  or  more  limited. 
These  are,  perhaps,  not  very  important  points,  but  they 
are  worth  making  for  the  sake  of  clearness. 

XIX 

I  have  now  to  say  a  final  word  about  the  points  of 
difference  which  still  remain.  And  the  first  of  these 
will  not,  I  hope,  detain  us  long.  It  has  to  do  with  the 
question  of  the  '  unalterabihty  '  of  the  forms  in  which 
the  '  metaphysical '  doctrines  of  the  Church  are  at 
present,  and  have  been  for  the  last  fourteen  or  fifteen 
centuries,  clothed.  The  matter  is  not  one  of  great  prac- 
tical importance,  because  (as  noted  above,  in  my  list 
of  points  of  agreement)  there  is  now  no  one  universally 
accepted  philosophy  into  terms  of  which  they  could  be 
translated.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  purely  theoretical  and  specu- 
lative problem,  which  might  be  formulated  as  follows  : 
Supposing  that  at  some  period  in  the  future,  before 
the  end  of  the  world,  a  single  logical  system  is  invented, 
and  becomes  universally  accepted,  in  which  the  category 
of  Substance  and  Attribute  and  the  copula  (see  p.  28) 
are  definitely  transcended  and  superseded :  will  it  then 
be  permissible  for  Christian  theologians  to  set  about 
the  work  of  translating  orthodox  dogma  from  terms 
of  Substance,  Attribute,  Nature,  and  Person  into  terms 
of  this  new  logic,  whatever  it  may  be  ?  Of  ^course,  for 
me  the  supposition  is  an  impossible  one,  because,  as 
I  have  said  before,  the  thought-forms,  in  which  the 
content  of  the  Depositum  Fideitwsbs^ enshrined ^^hy  the 
Catholic  Church  of  the  first  millennium,  seem  to  me  to 
be  rooted  in  the  structure  of  the  human  mind  as  such  : 
and  I  cannot  conceive  the  possibility  of  their  ever  being 

l2 


148     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

superseded,  so  long  as  we  retain  our  present  faculties, 
constituted  as  they  are.  But,  if  I  am  to  suppose,  for 
the  sake  of  argument,  that  such  a  new  logic  was  dis- 
covered, and  became  universally  and  unquestioningly 
accepted — I  do  not  mind  saying  that,  under  those  cir- 
cumstances, I  think  that  Christian  theologians  would 
be  justified  in  endeavouring  to  translate  the  '  meta- 
physical '  parts  of  the  Faith  into  such  hypothetical  new 
terms  :  though  I  should  add  the  proviso,  firstly,  that  it 
would  be  incumbent  upon  them  to  see  that  none  of  the 
heavenly  treasure  was  lost,  in  the  process  of  transferring 
it  from  one  set  of  vessels  to  another — that  is,  to  exercise 
the  most  minute  and  jealous  care  to  see  that  the  essential 
content  of  the  Deposit  was  in  no  way  impaired  or  dimin- 
ished by  the  change  of  form  :  ^  and  secondly,  that, 
until  Ecumenical  authority  had  had  an  opportunity  of 
pronouncing  upon  the  results  of  their  labours,  the  new 
formulations  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  purely  specu- 
lative and  provisional,  and  that,  meantime,  the  old 
categories  and  the  ancient  creeds  would  have  to  be  con- 
sidered as  holding  the  field. 

Of  course,  this  is  a  purely  speculative,  perhaps  a 
fantastic,  supposition,  which  may  never  be  realized  at  all, 
which  certainly  no  one  now  aHve  upon  this  earth  is 
likely  to  see  realized.  But  it  may  help  the  process  of 
mutual  comprehension  if  I  say  that  (in  order  to  meet 
you  as  far  as  I  can)  I  am  prepared  to  explain  the  term 
'  unalterable  ',  as  applied  to  the  '  metaphysical '  parts 
of  the  Creeds,  in  the  following  way  :  The  '  metaphysical ' 
doctrines  are  inherently  and  absolutely  unalterable 
('  permanent  and  unchangeable ')  in  respect  of  their 
content ;  in  respect  of  their  form,  they  are  conditionally 
unalterable,  i.  e,  they  cannot  be  altered  unless  and  until 
some  instrument,  more  perfectly  adapted  for  describing 

^  A  proviso  which  has  been  conspicuously  not  fulfilled  by  most 
modem  attempts  to  translate  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ 
from  terms  of  '  substance  '  and  '  nature  '  into  terms  of  '  value  '. 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  149 

the  mutual  relations  of  Reals,  than  was  the  old  logic, 
is  discovered.  And,  even  then,  I  should  contend  that 
the  Deposit  of  Faith  could  only  be  lawfully  retranslated 
into  the  new  terms  by  the  same  authority  which  had 
previously  translated  it  into  the  old,  viz.,  by  that  of 
the  Universal  Church.  But  the  discovery  of  such  a  new 
logic  is  such  an  inconceivably  remote  contingency  that 
I  do  not  feel  it  necessary  for  practical  purposes  always 
to  insert  the  adverb  '  conditionally  '  before  the  word 
'  unalterable  ',  when  referring  to  this  subject :  and  I 
still  retain  my  private  opinion  that  this  contingency  is 
not  merely  inconceivably  remote,  but  actually  im- 
possible. 

On  this  point,  therefore  (if  I  am  not  being  too  opti- 
mistic), I  am  incHned  to  think  that  our  differences  have 
been  reduced  almost  to  vanishing  point.  Most  doctrinal 
controversies  in  the  early  Church  were  terminated  by 
the  discovery  of  a  formula  which  men  of  goodwill  on 
both  sides  could  accept,  though  not  always  with  a 
minute  and  exact  identity  of  meaning  :  I  would  suggest, 
as  such  a  '  Union  '  formula,  the  following  :  '  The  meta- 
physical doctrines  of  the  Church  are  strictly  unalterable 
as  to  their  content  :  as  to  their  form,  they  are  unalter- 
able for  all  practical  purposes  and  so  far  as  human  pre- 
vision can  at  present  reach.' 

XX 

These  considerations,  however,  do  not  apply  to  the 
'  historical  clauses '  of  the  Creeds.  With  regard  to  them, 
I  should  contend  that  there  are  three,  and  only  three, 
legitimate  mental  attitudes,  viz.  : 

1.  Frank  acceptance  of  them  as  they  stand. 

2.  Frank  rejection  of  them  as  they  stand. 

3.  Pure  agnosticism,  or  suspension  of  judgement. 
The  attitude  of  '  freedom  of  apprehension  ',  which  you 

claim  to  occupy,  and  which  does  not  appear  to  be  iden- 


150     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

tical  with  any  one  of  the  above  three,  I  should  maintain 
to  be  inadmissible  in  their  regard.  It  seems  to  me  that 
whatever  '  freedom  of  apprehension  '  may  be  permissible 
in  the  case  of  the  '  metaphysical '  dogmas  arises  out  of 
the  fact  that  the  content  and  the  (present  de  facto)  form 
have  not  always  been  associated,  and  that  the  form  is 
relative  to  the  structure  of  human  thought.  I  dare  say 
that  in  regard  to  these  doctrines  there  must  always  be 
a  small  margin  of  variation  in  the  individual  apprehen- 
sion and  assimilation  of  them.  But  the  class  of  proposi- 
tions to  which  the  '  historical  clauses  '  of  the  Creeds  belong 
seems  to  be  one  in  which  such  a  margin  of  variation  can- 
not, from  the  nature  of  things,  be  admitted  :  they  must, 
as  I  have  said  before,  be  either  taken  or  left :  and  this 
for  the  following  reasons. 

The  historical  clauses  purport  to  be  statements  of 
objective,  external  facts,  occurring  in  the  material  or 
phenomenal  world — the  world  which  we  apprehend 
through  the  medium  of  sense.  There  is  no  use  in  bUnk- 
ing  this  fact.  The  clause  affirming  the  Virgin  Birth  states 
what  purports  to  be  a  sheer  physical  fact — that  the  body 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  conceived  by  Mary  without  the  usual 
physical  antecedents.  The  article  affirming  the  Resur- 
rection states  that  the  death  of  that  Body  on  the  Cross 
was  not  followed  by  the  usual  physical  consequents. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  clauses  (purport  to) 
describe  (alleged)  events  in  the  material  world  :  for  our 
Lord's  Body,  whilst  He  lived  on  earth,  certainly  was  part 
of  the  material  world.  Now  I  should  contend  that  no 
proposition  which  purports  to  describe  either  a  permanent 
state  of,  or  a  change  in,  the  material  world,  can  reasonably 
be  styled  '  relatively  true '  or  '  relatively  false '.  All  such 
propositions  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  either  abso- 
lutely true — that  is,  true  for  everybody  and  true  for  God, 
the  all-seeing  and  all-wise — or  absolutely  false.  Because 
the  material  world  itself  is  not  '  relative  '.  It  exists  out- 
side us  and  independently  of  us.    It  is  not  a  mere  picture 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  151 

in  our  heads,  or  a  state  of  our  consciousness.  And  if  the 
material  world  exists  independently  of  us  and  absolutely, 
or  in  its  own  right,  clearly  also  its  various  states,  and  the 
changes  that  occur  in  it,  are  absolute,  and  not  relative — 
they  are  not  created  by  us  :  they  are  what  they  are, 
whether  we  are  there  to  see  or  not.  Consequently,  there 
is  no  element  of  '  relativity  '  in  such  a  statement  as  this, 
'The  earth  goes  round  the  sun'.  This,  we  happen  to 
know,  is  '  absolutely  '  true.  The  earth,  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  its  separate  existence,  always  has  gone  round 
the  sun :  it  was  in  actual  fact  going  round  the  sun,  even 
when  everybody  believed  that  the  sun  was  going  round 
the  earth.  Similarly,  there  is  no  element  of  relativity  in 
the  contrary  proposition,  'The  sun  goes  round  the  earth'. 
This,  we  should  say,  is  '  absolutely  ' — or  quite  indepen- 
dently of  our  perceptions  or  preferences — false.  I  imagine 
that  even  the  wildest  subjectivist  would  hardly  assert 
that  the  sun  moved  round  the  earth  until  the  time  of 
Copernicus,  and  that  the  opposite  has  been  the  case  ever 
since. 

There  are,  it  is  true,  a  certain  number  of  affirmations 
about  the  external  world  which  might  be  described  in 
a  certain  sense  as  infected  with  relativity  :  and  these  are 
affirmations  in  which  the  predicate  has  a  numerical  or 
quantitative  determination.  For  instance,  we  might  say 
that  the  proposition  '  The  London  train  leaves  at  7.35 ' 
was  '  relatively  true  ',  even  though  the  fact  might  be  that 
it  left  at  7.33.  We  express  the  same  idea  in  less  philo- 
sophical language  when  we  say  that  a  proposition,  which 
we  know  to  be  somewhat  inexact  or  inaccurate,  is  '  near 
enough  '.  I  suppose  the  instance  which  I  have  given 
above  is  said  to  be  '  relatively  true  '  in  the  sense  that  it 
is  true,  or  practically  satisfactory,  for  the  purposes  of 
a  man  who  is  accustomed  to  allow  himself  at  least  ten 
minutes'  margin  for  catching  trains  ;  but  it  is  clear  that 
it  would  be  false  relatively  to  a  man  who  made  a  point 
of  arriving  at  the  station  not  more  than  one  minute  before 


152     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

the  departure  of  his  tram.  But  in  any  case  it  is  obvious 
that  the  clauses  of  the  Creed  which  affirm  the  Virgin 
Birth  and  the  Resurrection  have  no  element  of  '  rela- 
tivity '  in  them,  in  this  sense.  It  would  be  absurd  to  say 
that  such  a  starthng  assertion  as  that  '  Jesus  Christ  had 
no  human  father  '  was  '  inaccurate  '  or  '  inexact '.  No 
one  would  say  that  Dr.  Cook's  claims  to  have  reached 
the  North  Pole  were  '  inaccurate ',  unless  he  were  con- 
sciously indulging  in  jocular  meiosis. 

I  am  therefore  still  constrained  to  contend  that  in  the 
case  of  the  clauses  affirming  the  Virgin  Birth  and  Resur- 
rection [a]  form  and  content  are  coincident  and  insepar- 
able, and  that  (b)  even  if,  for  the  purposes  of  thought,  we 
distinguish  them,  there  is  no  trace  of  relativity  in  the 
form  of  these  historical  propositions,  such  as  I  have 
admitted  to  exist  in  the  case  of  the  metaphysical  propo- 
sitions. It  foUows,  therefore,  that,  in  regard  to  them, 
the  claim  to  '  freedom  of  apprehension  '  or  '  partial  affir- 
mation '  cannot  be  conceded  ;  as  I  said  at  the  beginning 
of  this  section,  the  only  attitudes  which  I  can  recognize 
as  being  logically  legitimate  are  frank  acceptance,  frank 
rejection,  and  frank  agnosticism.  And,  on  this  point  at 
least,  I  think  I  can  claim  to  have  on  my  side  whatever 
weight  may  be  supposed  to  attach  to  the  opinion  of  the 
'  plain  man  '  or  the  '  man  in  the  street '. 

XXI 

Perhaps,  after  all,  by  '  freedom  of  apprehension '  you 
really  mean  what  I  have  called  '  agnosticism  ' — the  atti- 
tude of  neither  affirming  nor  denying.  But  I  must  point 
out  that,  so  far  as  its  bearings  on  the  question  of  the 
'  infalUbihty  '  or  '  trustworthiness  '  of  the  Church  are 
concerned,  the  thii'd  attitude,  that  of  '  agnosticism  ',  is 
practically  equivalent  to  the  second,  that  of  '  rejection  '. 
It  is  obvious  that  an  attitude  of  '  agnosticism  '  or  '  sus- 
pense of  judgement ',  in  regard  to  what  is  imperiously 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  153 

inculcated  by  a  guide  claiming  to  be  '  infallible ',  argues 
a  considerable  degree  of  mistrust  and  absence  of  con- 
fidence in  the  said  guide.  We  are,  therefore,  brought 
back  to  the  second  main  point  of  difference  under  this 
head,  viz.  whether  or  not  the  '  divine  illumination  '  which 
we  both  admit  to  have  been  bestowed  upon  the  Church 
in  the  work  of  defining  Christian  doctrine  was  of  such 
a  degree  of  intensity  that  it  can  reasonably  be  described 
as  endowing  the  Church  with  '  infalhbihty '.  A  few  words 
must  now  be  devoted  to  this  question. 


XXII 

And  first,  with  regard  to  the  grounds  on  which  this 
fundamental  premiss  of  the  '  infalhbility  of  the  Church  ' 
rests.  In  my  first  letter  (p.  38)  I  based  it  frankly  upon 
an  '  intuition  '.  You,  however,  can  only  regard  my  claim 
to  possess  this  intuition  as  involving  a  '  petitio  principii 
on  a  large  scale '  (p.  109).  You  had  made  this  criticism 
already  in  your  second  letter  (on  pp.  52,  53),  and  I  had 
retorted  with  a  tu  quoque,  of  which  you  candidly  admit 
the  force  (p.  109).  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  very  much 
more  to  be  said  on  the  subject,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  pure  logic.  In  regard  to  dependence  upon  unproved 
and  unprovable  assumptions,  we  both,  and  all  Christians 
with  us,  are  '  in  the  same  boat '  ;  nor  does  it  seem  to  me 
that  the  difference  in  the  degree  of  definiteness  with 
which  we  hold  what  is  in  reaUty  one  and  the  same  funda- 
mental principle  (cf.  pp.  61,  63)  constitutes  a  ground  for 
assuming  one  way  of  holding  it  to  be  vaHd,  and  the  other 
not.  The  pot  has  no  right  to  reproach  the  kettle  with 
blackness,  even  though  the  kettle's  integument  may  be 
of  a  somewhat  more  definitely  raven  hue  than  its  own. 
Your  remarks  about  '  anticipated  truth '  and  '  verifica- 
tion' (p.  110)  are,  of  course,  from  my  point  of  view,  unex- 
ceptionable. In  fact,  it  seems  to  amount  to  a  statement, 
in   different  words,  of  the  principle   which  I  ventured 


154     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

to  expound  on  pp.  72,  viz,  that  religious  principles  are 
given  in  the  first  instance  by  '  intuition  '  or  the  '  gift 
of  Faith  '  (these  are  only  names  for  the  same  ineffable 
fact,  viewed  respectively  from  man's  side  and  from  God's), 
and  verified  by  the  consciousness  of  the  reception  of 
'  grace ',  or  spiritual  help.  For,  how  do  you  come  by 
your  '  anticipated  truths  ',  unless  it  be  by  direct,  though 
unanalysable,  revelation  from  God — that  is,  by  a  flash  of 
divinely  bestowed  insight  or  intuition  ?  You  would,  I 
imagine,  hardly  say  that  you  had  stumbled  upon  them 
by  pure  accident,  Hke  Archimedes  in  his  discovery  of 
hydrostatics  :  and  you  would  hardly  maintain,  in  view 
of  facts  like  the  Messina  earthquakes  and  the  Titanic 
disaster  (not  to  mention  the  present  war),  that  the  '  veri- 
fication ',  even  for  such  a  proposition  as  '  God  is  love  ', 
was  a  matter  of  direct  sensory  observation.  But  it  does 
not  seem  unreasonable  to  assert  that  whatever  guarantee 
is  afforded  by  '  intuition  '  on  the  one  hand  and  moral  and 
spiritual  '  verification  '  on  the  other  can  be  claimed  as 
much  by  those  parts  of  Cathohcism  which  are  pecuHar 
to  it  as  by  those  which  it  has  in  common  with  orthodox 
Protestantism  ;  and,  indeed,  you  profess  yourself  willing 
'  to  share  with '  me  '  the  benefit  of  these  considerations  ' : 
so  that,  perhaps,  no  more  need  be  said  upon  this  section 
of  our  argument. 

XXIII 

I  welcome  what  you  say  in  the  footnote  to  p.  106 : 
*  The  weakened  sense  which  you  attribute  to  these  words 
"  infalHbihty  ",  "  unalterability  "  goes  far  to  meet  me/ 
despite  the  fact  that  in  the  text  of  your  letter  you  describe 
them  as  '  unfortunate  '.  I  should  not,  indeed,  have,  my- 
self, described  this  sense  as  a  '  weakened  sense  '  :  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  responsible  person  ever  has  attributed 
any  other  sense  to  the  word  '  inf  aUibihty  '  than  that  of 
'  incapacity  for  deceiving  or  being  deceived '  :  and  I 
should  have  supposed  it  self-evident  that,  so  far  as  the 


J/r.  N.  P.   Williams  III  155 

word  '  unalterable  '  is  appHed  to  the  Catholic  Faith,  it 
is  only  applied  simpliciter  to  the  essential  '  content ',  as 
distinguished  from  the  '  form  '  (cf.  p.  23).  However,  we 
need  not  waste  time  in  discussing  this  question.  I  am 
glad  that  I  have  succeeded  in  making  clear  to  you  exactly 
what  I  mean  by  the  '  unalterability  of  the  Faith  '  and 
the  '  infallibility  of  the  Church  '.  But  I  very  much  regret 
that  I  cannot  see  my  way  to  obhge  you  by  dropping  these 
terms,  as  you  suggest  in  the  footnote  quoted  above.  No 
doubt,  the  word  '  infallibility  '  tends  to  arouse  many  pre- 
judices in  the  minds  of  some  people  :  it  calls  up  visions 
of  the  Vatican  Council  of  1870,  of  Ultramontanism,  In- 
quisitors, and  thumb-screws.  But  I  am  afraid  I  cannot 
help  that.  It  is  sometimes  necessary  to  adhere  tena- 
ciously to  a  particular  word,  despite  its  accidental  un- 
popularity, because  it  is  the  only  word  which  really 
expresses  a  particular  meaning — as  in  the  case  of  the 
Homoousion.  And  so  it  is  in  the  present  instance.  We 
could  not  drop  the  word  without  appearing  to  disparage  the 
idea  :  for  there  is  no  other  term  which  exactly  expresses 
what  we  mean. 

XXIV 

Perhaps,  however,  the  process  of  replying  to  isolated 
points  is  somewhat  unsatisfactory.  It  will  be  simpler  if, 
at  the  cost  of  some  prohxity,  I  venture  to  sketch  the  way 
in  which  I  arrive  at  my  position  as  a  whole,  replying  to 
any  further  points  of  difference  as  they  emerge  in  the 
course  of  the  discussion. 

I  find  myself  in  need  of  a  religion  ;  that  is,  of  some 
means  of  access  to  God,  some  means  of  obtaining  help 
from  Him  towards  salvation  from  sin,  and  some  rehable 
information  about  Him.  For  various  reasons,  which  I 
need  not  go  into  here,  Buddhism,  Mohammedanism, 
Bahaism,  and  so  forth,  do  not  satisfy  me.  Christianity, 
therefore,  holds  the  field,  in  default  of  other  claimants. 
But,  I  no  sooner  state  to  myself  '  I  must  be  a  Christian ', 


156     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

than  the  question  rises  up  in  front  of  me,  '  What  is 
Christianity  ?  '  And,  at  first  sight,  it  would  seem  reason- 
able to  reply,  '  Christianity  is  what  the  great  majority 
of  those  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians 
beheve  it  to  be  ' ;  in  other  words,  what  I  have  desig- 
nated as  '  CathoUcism  '  ;  just  as,  if  I  were  inquiring 
'  What  is  Radicahsm  ?  '  it  would  be  prima  facie  reason- 
able to  reply  '  Radicalism  is  what  all,  or  most,  persons 
who  call  themselves  Radicals  declare  it  to  be  '. 

Let  me  insert  at  this  point  an  anecdote  which  will 
illustrate  the  prima  facie  reasonableness  of  this  pro- 
visional answer  to  the  question. 

I  have  a  friend  who  is  a  devout  and  learned  member 
of  the  Jewish  Church.  Some  time  ago  he  had  occasion 
to  pubHsh  a  pamphlet  in  which  he  addressed  himself 
especially  to  the  consideration  of  the  question  '  What 
is  the  essence  of  Judaism  ?  '  The  course  of  his  argument 
compelled  him  to  make  use  of  analogies  drawn  from 
Christianity,  and  in  one  section  of  his  treatise  he  found 
himself  referring  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  as 
'  one  of  the  central  doctrines  of  Christianity '.  For 
this,  he  was  somewhat  vehemently  attacked  by  certain 
Christian  divines,  who  shall  be  nameless,  on  the  ground 
that  the  doctrine  in  question  was  not  a  central  doctrine 
of  Christianity,  but  merely  of  one  type,  and  that  the 
least  enlightened  and  progressive  type,  of  Christianity. 
To  which  my  friend,  very  reasonably  in  my  opinion, 
replied,  '  Your  special  behefs  and  preferences,  or  those 
of  English  Christians  in  particular,  have  nothing  to  do 
with  me  ;  no  more  have  your  views  as  to  what  con- 
stitutes "  progress ".  I  stand  outside  Christianity 
altogether  ;  religiously,  and  to  a  certain  extent  socially, 
my  outlook  and  environment  are  cosmopolitan  rather 
than  insular  ;  I  therefore  view  Christendom  as  a  whole, 
in  the  character  of  a  detached  and  dispassionate  observer. 
Moreover,  I  am  not  specially  interested  in  its  origins  ; 
for  my  purposes,  I  only  need  to  take  cognizance  of  the 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  157 

state  in  which  it  is  now,  and  has  been  for  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  its  history.  Consequently,  I  feel  myself 
entitled  to  assume  that  "  Christianity "  is  what  the 
vast  majority  of  its  adherents  declare  it  to  be  ;  and  my 
statement  about  "  the  Real  Presence  "  was,  therefore, 
perfectly  correct.' 

It  is,  perhaps,  not  uncharitable  to  suppose  that  the 
divines  in  question  had,  hitherto,  tacitly  assumed  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  '  Christianity  '  was  mainly  iden- 
tical with  Anglo-Saxon,  or  possibly  with  Teutonic  Chris- 
tianity, and  that  Christianity  as  it  exists  in  other  than 
Teutonic  countries  was  comparatively  negligible.  I  need 
not  point  out  to  you  how  intensely  home,  provincial,  and 
insular  such  a  view  appears,  if  formulated  in  express 
terms.  But,  for  any  one  who  rejects  it,  as  the  philosopher, 
the  '  spectator  of  all  time  and  all  existence ',  necessarily 
must,  the  only  attitude  possible  at  the  beginning  of  the 
quest,  would  seem  to  be  that  of  my  Jewish  friend,  'I 
assume  provisionally  that  "  Christianity  "  is  what  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  Christians  say  that  it  is '. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  assert  that  this  consideration  pos- 
sesses anything  like  absolute  cogency  ;  its  only  value,  so 
far,  is  that  it  gives  me  an  d<popfxi^  for  my  inquiry.  Aristotle 
{Top.  100  a  29)  says  that  dialectical  reasoning  necessarily 
starts  from  to.  euSo^a,  '  current  opinions ',  which  he  pro- 
ceeds to  define  as  the  opinions  held  by  '  all  men ',  '  the 
majority  of  men  ',  or  by  '  the  wise  '.  I  do  not  think  it  is 
too  much  to  claim  this  proposition  ('  The  presumption  is 
that  "  Christianity  "  in  the  strict  sense  =  "  Catholicism  "  ') 
as  an  euSo^op,  vouched  for  by  a  sufficient  number  of  a-o(j)oi, 
to  serve  as  a  starting-point  for  my  research. 

Perhaps  this  idea  might  be  expressed  in  the  following 
way.  Imagine  a  Martian,  or  some  completely  impartial 
visitant  from  another  world,  studying  the  present  state 
of  Christianity,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  comprehension  of 
its  essential  nature  and  meaning.  Undoubtedly  at  first 
sight  the  most  massive  and  imposing  fact  which  would 


158     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

force  itself  upon  his  attention  would  be  the  existence  of 
a  great  central  block  numbering  some  four  hundred  mil- 
lions of  people  (that  is,  nearly  four-fifths  of  the  total 
periphery  of  Christendom),  which,  with  whatever  cleav- 
ages of  external  unity  and  diversities  of  rite  and  custom, 
holds  and  beUeves  in  what  is  substantially  the  same  con- 
ception of  the  Christian  religion.  Throughout  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  this  block  there  runs  a  single  three- 
fold grain  or  structure — doctrinal,  institutional,  and  sacra- 
mental. The  Nicene  Creed,  the  great  doctrines  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  and  the  Atonement,  the  three- 
fold ministry,  the  sacraments,  the '  Communion  of  Saints ' : 
these  things  are  the  same  in  Moscow  as  they  are  in  Paris, 
the  same  in  Siberia  as  they  are  in  Galway.  He  would 
notice,  on  the  other  hand,  when  looking  at  what  I  may, 
without  disrespect,  call  the  '  fringe  '  which  surrounds  this 
great  central  block,  that  the  various  comminuted  frag- 
ments, of  which  the  fringe  is  made  up,  have  all,  at  one 
time  or  another,  been  broken  off  from  the  main  block  ; 
and  that  they  do  not  seem  to  have  any  one  clearly  essen- 
tial principle  binding  them  together,  other  than  that  of 
their  separation  from  it.  He  would  notice,  further,  that 
so  far  as  they  have  any  positive  structure  at  aU,  it  is 
identical  with  that  of  the  main  block,  only  cut  down  and 
mutilated  in  varying  degrees  of  completeness.  Some 
which  lie  close  to  the  main  block  have  the  three-fold 
grain  very  clearly  marked  :  others  have  it  less  distinctly 
visible,  and  in  others  it  has  been  almost  entirely  obliter- 
ated. Those  which  he  farthest  away,  on  the  extreme 
edge  of  the  fringe  (the  schools  of  thought  associated  with 
the  names  of  Troeltsch  and  Jatho),  seem  to  shade  off  into 
and  to  be  practically  indistinguishable  from  the  surround- 
ing abyss  of  pure  agnosticism.  At  first  sight,  then,  it 
seems  probable  that  the  central  block  really  is  what  it 
claims  to  be,  namely,  real  or  essential  Christianity,  and 
that  the  fringe  consists  of  defective,  mutilated,  or  cut- 
down  versions  of  it. 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  159 

If,  however,  I  interrogate  the  various  sections  of  the 
fringe  as  to  their  own  raison  d'etre,  I  find  that  they  all 
return  pretty  much  the  same  reply.  All  claim  that  the 
great  central  block  consists  of  a  kernel  of  genuine  Chris- 
tianity, which  has  been  coated  over  in  the  course  of  ages 
with  a  thick  crust  of  non-Christian  accretions.  I  find, 
indeed,  that  the  non-CathoHc  bodies  are  not  at  all  unani- 
mous in  their  repHes  to  the  question,  '  Which  CathoHc 
doctrines  or  practices  belong  to  the  kernel,  and  which  to 
the  adventitious  crust  ?  '  Some,  for  instance,  would  say 
that  such  ideas  as  the  Real  Presence  and  Communion  of 
Saints  belonged  to  the  '  crust ',  but  that  the  doctrines 
of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  belonged  to  the 
*  kernel '.  Others  would  say  that  the  whole  three-fold 
structure  which  I  have  noted  above  belonged  to  the 
'  crust ',  and  that  the  '  kernel '  consisted  merely  of  mono- 
theism and  morahty,  or  of  morality  only.  Nor  is  there 
any  unanimity  as  to  when  the  alleged  process  of  '  accre- 
tion '  began  ;  some  place  its  beginning  at  the  end  of  the 
'  first  six  centuries  ',  some  immediately  after  the  fourth, 
some  after  the  first.  I  have,  therefore,  to  look  into  his- 
tory, to  examine  the  origins  of  Christianity  for  myself, 
and  to  form  my  own  judgement  as  to  whether  or  not 
Cathohcism  is  real  Christianity,  or  real  Christianity  plus 
a  '  crust '  of  paganism. 

I  find,  as  a  result  of  my  historical  investigations,  that 
Catholicism  can  be  traced  back,  in  essentials,  at  least  to 
the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century  a.d.  Beyond  this 
point,  indeed,  the  evidence  becomes  fragmentary  and 
imperfect ;  but,  so  far  as  I  can  pierce  the  mists  which 
involve  the  primitive  beginnings  of  Christianity,  I  seem 
to  see  the  characteristic  fines  of  Cathohcism  running  back 
through  Irenaeus,  Polycarp,  and  Ignatius,  into  the  apo- 
stolic age  and  joining  up  there  with  the  main  tendencies 
of  the  preaching  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John.  (I  am  speak- 
ing, of  course,  in  the  most  summary  fashion,  and  have 
not  time  or  space  to  prove  all  these  historical  assertions 


160     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

here.)  I  need  not  remind  you  of  what  scholars  Hke 
Kirsopp  Lake  say  about  Pauline  sacramentalism  and 
Johannine  mysticism.  But,  even  so,  I  am  not  yet  out  of 
the  wood.  Even  if  it  be  admitted  that  Catholicism  is 
the  legitimate  continuation  and  development  of  Pauline 
sacramentalism,  it  would  not  necessarily  follow  that  it  was 
the  legitimate  development  of  authentic  Christianity — 
that  is,  of  Christianity  as  taught  by  Christ.  For  there  is 
always  the  hypothesis,  on  which  liberal  Protestantism  is 
being  more  and  more  forced  back,  that  St.  Paul  and 
St.  John  (doubtless  unconsciously  and  with  the  best  of 
motives)  misrepresented  the  Founder  of  Christianity.  I 
have  still  to  reckon  with  the  theory  which  holds  that 
through  the  medium  of  St.  Paul  and  his  Gentile  converts, 
the  characteristic  ideas  and  usages  of  the  Mystery  ReH- 
gions  filtered  into  Christianity,  and  that  the  Apostle  of 
the  Gentiles  was  the  first  great  corrupter  of  the  primitive 
simpHcity  of  the  Gospel.  There  seem,  in  short,  to  be 
two  possible  hypotheses  of  the  origin  of  Catholicism  : 
(1)  that  it  really  is  what  it  claims  to  be,  the  legitimate 
development  and  explication  of  a  deposit  committed  by 
Christ  to  his  followers  ;  (2)  that  it  is  a  vast  mass  of  Graeco- 
Roman  accretion,  waUing  in  and  conceaHng  from  view 
the  original  core  of  the  Master's  teaching,  which  is  alleged 
to  have  been  nothing  but  monotheism  and  morahty, 
contained  in  the  fantastic  and  delusive  forms  of  Jewish 
apocalyptic. 

From  the  purely  intellectual  point  of  view  it  seems  to 
me  that  either  of  these  hypotheses  will  fit,  or,  at  any  rate, 
can  be  made  to  fit,  the  facts  ;  and  I  do  not  know  that  on 
purely  intellectual  grounds  I  should  ever  be  able  to 
decide  between  them.  Of  course,  the  '  secularization- 
hypothesis  '  involves  the  rejection  of  certain  parts  of  the 
Gospels  (that  is,  of  the  only  evidence  which  we  possess 
for  the  life  of  Christ),  as,  for  instance,  the  passages  which 
represent  the  Founder  of  Christianity  as  speaking  of  '  My 
Church  ',  promising  His  Apostles  that  what  they  should 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  161 

bind  on  earth  should  be  bound  in  heaven,  and  requiring 
the  universal  propagation  of  baptism  :  but  the  explana- 
tion which  it  provides  for  the  existence  of  these  passages, 
namely,  that  they  are  due  to  an  unconscious  coloration 
of  the  facts,  in  the  minds  of  the  Evangelic  writers,  by  the 
incipient  Catholicism  of  the  Pauline  school,  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  things  impossible  ;  a  priori,  I  should  say  that 
the  *  secularization-hypothesis  '  was  no  less,  and  no  more, 
probable  than  the  '  Deposit-hypothesis  '.  I  find,  in  fact 
(if  I  may  be  allowed  the  use  of  a  profoundly  conventional 
metaphor),  that  I  have  come  to  the  '  parting  of  the  ways  ', 
and  there  is  no  signpost  to  tell  me  whether  to  turn  to  the 
right  hand  or  to  the  left.  It  is  just  at  this  point  that 
some  unseen  power  seems  to  take  hold  of  me  and  push  me 
forcibly  down  the  left-hand  road  ;  that  is,  the  road  of 
identifjdng  myself  with,  and  committing  myself  to,  the 
great  central  mass  of  Christianity.  This  is  what  I  meant  by 
the  phrase  '  intuition '.  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  here  to 
discuss  the  exact  nature  of  this  'intuition  ',  as  a  function 
of  the  soul ;  I  have  really  nothing  more  to  add  to  what 
I  said  in  my  second  letter  (p.  62, 1.  20).  I  am  now  only 
concerned  to  point  out  the  exact  place  which  it  occupies 
in  the  process  whereby  I  arrive  at  my  position.  My 
*  intuition  '  simply  shows  me,  in  a  perfectly  general  sense, 
that  the  left-hand  road  is  to  be  taken  ;  in  other  words, 
that  the  great  secular  development  of  Catholic  Chris- 
tianity really  was  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  that 
'  historical '  or  '  traditional '  Christianity — the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  great  central  block — is  to  be  believed  and 
accepted.  I  look  at  the  venerable  fabric  of  the  historic 
Church  and  Faith,  viewing  it  as  an  indissoluble  whole, 
cohering  together  in  unity  and  simplicity  :  and,  despite 
the  superficial  disfigurements  which  man  has  been  per- 
mitted to  inflict  upon  it  (such  as  the  breaches  of  visible 
Church  communion)  and  the  adventitious  growths  which 
deform  some  parts  of  it  (such  as  the  one-sided  develop- 
ment of  the  modern  Papacy),  I  find  myself  saying  '  Surely 

M 


162     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Tradition 

God  is  in  this  place  :   this  is  none  other  than  the  house 
of  God,  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven  '. 

Of  course,  I  quite  admit  that  this  '  intuition  ',  or  '  cate- 
gorical imperative ',  constitutes  a  valid  argument  only 
for  me  and  others  who  are  conscious  of  it.    I  cannot  really 
argue  with  any  one  who  altogether  repudiates  possessing 
it,  nor  do  I  pretend   to  be  able  to  prove  to  such  a  one 
that  he  ought  to  possess  it.     It  is  just  the  same  in  the 
case  of  ethics,  or  aesthetics  ;   the  man  who  possesses  the 
ethical  or  aesthetic  sense  could  not  argue  with  an  opponent 
who  disclaimed  its  possession,  because  there  would  be  no 
common  premisses  from  which  the  argument  could  start. 
And  this  discussion  in  which  we  have  been  engaged  has 
only  been  rendered  possible  by  the  fact  (as  it  seems  to 
me)  that  you  do  possess  this  '  intuition  '  or  '  categorical 
imperative ',  only,  as  I  said  on  p.  74,  in  an  imperfect  or 
weakened  form.    I  cannot  prove  to  you  that  you  ought 
to  have  this  intuition  in  the  same  form  in  which  I  possess 
it,  any  more  than  Aristotle  could  prove  to  the  possessor 
of  an  imperfect  moral  sense  that  he  ought  to  have  a  per- 
fect one.^    In  the  nature  of  the  case,  all  that  I  can  hope 
to  do  is  to  show  {a)  that,  given  my  premisses,  my  conclu- 
sions irresistibly  follow  (which,  I  gather,  you  do  not  dis- 
pute), and  (6)  that  the  objections  sometimes  raised  against 
these   premisses   are  not   insuperable   or   unanswerable. 
And  this,  in  the  last  resort,  is  all  that  any  theologian, 
whatever  religious  system  he  may  be  defending,  can  pre- 
tend to  accomplish.    Were  it  otherwise — were  it  possible 
to  prove  propositions  about  God  and  heavenly  things  by 
direct  induction  from  sense-observation,  like  the  laws  of 
natural  science,  or  by  direct  deduction  from  the  necessary 
laws  of  thought,  like  the  truths  of  mathematics — there 
would  be  no  such  thing  as  divisions  of  religious  opinion, 
on  the  one  hand  ;    and  there  would  be  no  room  left  for 
the  exercise  of  the  virtue  of  Faith,  on  the  other. 

^  The  best  argument  that  Aristotle  can  find  for  dealing  with  the 
man  who  challenges  fundamental  moral  principles  is  to  inform  him 
that  ho  needs  '  chastisement '  rather  than  '  demonstration  '. 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  III  163 

XXV 

You  will,  no  doubt,  see  from  the  foregoing  what  answer 
I  should  give  to  the  criticism  contained  in  the  foUowmg 
words  (p,  109  of  your  last  letter)  :  '  I  cannot  in  the  least 
see  that  broad  antecedent  principles  such  as  these  (the 
ideas  of  God,  Freedom,  and  Immortahty)  supply  any 
sound  analogy  or  justification  for  the  claim  that  you 
make  to  take  on  trust  an  elaborate  system  consistiug 
of  a  great  number  of  distinct  propositions.'  I  suppose 
your  contention  is,  that  there  is  no  analogy  from  a  simple 
'  intuition  '  which  gives  a  simple,  single  proposition,  such 
as  '  God  exists  ',  to  an  alleged  '  intuition  '  which  vouches 
for  an  elaborate  system  consisting  of  many  propositions. 
But  I  must  point  out  this  :  I  do  not  claim  to  be  able  to 
hold  the  whole  body  of  CathoUc  doctrine  in  the  focus  of 
attention  simultaneously,  and  to  have  a  simultaneous 
intuition  of  the  truth  of  each  and  every  particular  member 
of  it.  I  merely  claim  to  see  by  intuition  the  truth,  or  the 
divinity,  of  '  historic  Christianity  ' — that  is,  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  '  great  central  block  ' — as  an  undifferen- 
tiated whole.  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  sixty  separate 
and  synchronous  intuitions  assuring  me  that  this,  and 
this,  and  this  detail  of  CathoUcism  is  true.  All  I  claim  is 
to  know  by  intuition  that  CathoHcism  in  general  is  true. 
I  begin  with  the  whole,  and  work  down  through  the  pro  - 
cess  of  reasoning  and  inquiry  to  the  parts.  It  follows 
that  what  I  should  put  forward  as  being,  for  me,  the 
really  chnching  argument  on  the  subject  of,  let  us  say, 
the  Virgin  Birth,  might  be  roughly  summarized  as  foUows  : 
'  CathoHcism  as  a  whole  is  true  ;  the  Virgin  Birth  is  an 
integral  part  of  CathoUcism  ;  therefore  the  Virgin  Birth 
is  true.'  No  doubt  it  is  just  here  that  you  will  find  the 
petitio  principii.  You  would,  no  doubt,  contend  that,  by 
assuming  the  truth  of  CathoHcism,  I  impHcitly  assume 
the  truth  of  the  Virgin  Birth  ;  and  am  therefore  begging 
the  precise  question  at  issue.    But  I  may  remind  you  that 


164     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Iradition 

this  petitio  principii,  if  such  it  is  to  be  called,  is  one  which 
is  implicit  in  the  syllogism  as  such.  The  objections  which 
have  been  raised,  on  this  score,  by  modern  logicians 
against  the  syllogism,  as  a  form  of  reasoning,  are  well 
known.  The  stock  instance  is  something  as  foUows  :  We 
wish,  let  us  say,  to  prove  that  Socrates  is  mortal ;  we 
therefore  reason  as  follows  :  '  All  men  are  mortal ;  now 
Socrates  is  a  man  ;  therefore,  Socrates  is  mortal.'  It  is 
urged,  with  good  reason,  that  the  conclusion  is  reaUy 
impUcit  in  the  major  premiss.  Therefore,  it  is  contended, 
syllogistic  reasoning  is  a  perpetual  revolution  in  a  circle, 
which  can  never  disclose  to  us  any  truth  which  we  do  not 
know  ah'eady.  I  imagine  that  the  usual  reply  to  this 
difficulty  would  run  somewhat  in  this  manner :  '  The 
psychological  process,  of  which  the  syllogism  is  the  logical 
formulation,  is  as  follows  :  we  have  presented  to  us 
a  single  homogeneous  whole  or  unity,  which  may  be 
described  as  "  humanity  in  general  "  ;  and  within  it,  but 
indissolubly  rooted  in  it,  we  distinguish  two  elements  or 
aspects,  namely,  "  Socrates  "  and  "  Mortality  ",  which  are 
seen  to  cohere  together  in  vktue  of  their  own  co-inherence 
in  the  general  mass  of  "  humanity  ".'  Thus,  aU  syllo- 
gistic reasoning  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  process  of  inspec- 
tion ;  and  this  is  the  point  which  I  tried  to  make  on 
page  64  in  my  second  letter.  '  Having  obtained  my 
principle  by  means  of  intuition  (i.e.  that  "  orthodox 
Christianity  "  is  true)  I  can  then  proceed  by  way  of 
pure  ratiocination,  or  rather  of  mere  inspection  of  the  facts. 
I  have  only  to  inform  myself  as  to  what  the  truths  of 
orthodox  tradition  actually  are.'  When  we  '  deduce  ' 
a  new  truth  from  an  old,  what  reaUy  happens  is  that  we 
look,  more  attentively  and  minutely  than  we  have  ex 
hypothesi  hitherto  done,  at  the  old  truth  :  and,  for  the 
first  time,  discern  the  new  truth  contained  or  embedded 
in  it.  And  so  it  is  in  the  present  instance.  We  have 
given  to  us,  by  Faith,  the  general  belief  that  '  traditional 
Christianity  '  is  the  authentic   Deposit  of  truth,   com- 


Mr.  N.  P.   Williams  111  165 

niitted  by  our  Lord  to  His  Apostles,  and  faithfully  pre- 
served, according  to  the  mind  of  God,  by  the  Spirit- 
bearing  Church  ;  we  then  look  more  closely  into  the  heart 
of  this  great  and  venerable  fact, '  traditional  Christianity  ', 
to  which  we  have  in  a  general  sense  committed  ourselves  ; 
and  we  find  there,  not  only  grace  and  help,  but  light  and 
truth,  expressed  in  a  system  of  doctrines,  each  and  all  of 
which  are  guaranteed,  for  us,  by  their  common  co-inher- 
ence in  the  total  fact  of  '  Catholicism  '.  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  the  general  premiss  from  which  it  starts, 
I  do  not  think  that  this  procedure  can  really  be  impugned 
in  respect  of  formal  correctness. 

Then,  of  course — when  the  behever  has  passed  from 
the  stage  of  implicit  faith,  in  which  he  merely  believes,  in 
a  general  sense,  that  what  the  Church  says  is  true,  to  that 
of  explicit  Faith,  in  which  he  accepts  each  and  every 
detail  of  what  is  laid  down  as  de  fide — follows  the  process 
of  '  moral  and  spiritual  verification  ',  whereby  the  '  anti- 
cipated truth  ',  viz.  that  Catholic  Christianity  is  to  be 
absolutely  trusted,  is  found  in  a  thousand  ways  to  be  the 
key  that  fits  into  the  lock  of  fife's  myriad  perplexities  and 
trials.  But  of  this  I  have  written  above  (p.  72),  so  that 
I  need  not  enlarge  upon  it  now. 


XXVI 

At  this  point,  then,  our  discussion  may  close.  In 
the  nature  of  the  case,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
either  of  us  should  decisively  refute,  or  convert,  the 
other  ;  but  it  is  something  that  we  have  been  able  (as  I 
think  we  have)  to  trace  our  surface  differences  in  regard 
to  certain  beliefs  down  to  divergences  (happily,  not  very 
great  or  permanently  irremediable  divergences)  in  respect 
of  fundamental  and  indemonstrable  dp^at.  If  I  look 
back  over  the  course  of  the  debate,  what  seems  to  stand 
out  in  strongest  relief  is  the  fact  that  we  seem  to  have 


166     Form  and  Content  in  Christian  Traditio7i 

come  much  nearer  to  an  agreement  on  the  question  of 
the  divine  illumination  bestowed  on  the  Church  by  the 
indweUing  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  than  on  the  question  of 
Miracles.  Perhaps  the  reason  for  this  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  rehgion  unites,  whereas  philosophy  divides. 
Even  in  regard  to  the  question  of  miracles,  I  can  go  with 
you  in  all  your  positive  statements — as,  for  instance, 
when  you  say  '  I  was  quite  prepared  for  the  presence  in 
the  universe  of  extraordinary  forces,  expressing  them- 
selves in  extraordinary  phenomena.  I  do  not  doubt 
at  all  that  the  pubUc  ministry  of  our  Lord  and  of  the 
Apostles  was  accompanied  by  such  phenomena  '  (p.  100). 
It  is  only  when  you  begin  to  philosophize  upon  miracles, 
to  raise  the  question  of  their  metaphysical  rationale, 
and  to  formulate  canons  of  conformity  and  noncon- 
formity to  '  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion  '  for  deter- 
mining their  a  priori  possibility,  that  serious  and  radical 
divergences  begin  to  make  themselves  felt.  I  do  not,  of 
course,  suggest  for  a  moment  that  it  is  wrong  or  un- 
desirable to  raise  these  philosophical  questions  in  regard 
to  Miracles  :  I  am  merely  pointing  out  the  obvious  fact 
that,  the  deeper  one  plunges  into  the  jungle  of  purely 
intellectual  speculation,  the  farther  away  one  tends  to 
get  from  one's  companions.  Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted 
to  emphasize  this  one  point  in  conclusion  :  I  think  that, 
given  an  indefinite  time  for  discussion,  we  might  very 
well  arrive  at  an  agreement,  which  was  for  all  practical 
purposes  complete,  on  the  abstract  question  of  the 
'  divine  guidance  of  the  Church  '  in  the  definition,  at 
least,  of  the  '  metaphysical '  doctrines.  But  (if  I  may 
venture,  without  offence,  to  say  so)  I  cannot  conceive 
myself  ever  under  any  circumstances  accepting  your 
distinction  between  contra  naturam  and  supra  naturam 
events,  or  admitting  any  reaUy  final  and  conclusive  test 
of  the  a  priori  credibiHty  of  miracles  other  than  that 
of  conformity  to  what  we  know  by  revelation  of  the 
character  of  God. 


Mr.  N.  P.   WilUams  III  1G7 

However,  I  do  not  wish  to  end  upon  the  note  of  divided 
opinion.  I  would  rather  conclude  this  letter,  and  our 
correspondence,  in  the  spirit  of  hope — hope  that,  sooner 
or  later,  those  who  think  with  you  will  banish  what  I 
must  needs  consider  the  vain  and  illusory  fear  of  '  con- 
tradicting scientific  laws ',  and  will  see  their  way  clear 
to  taking  just  that  little  step  forward  which  will  bring 
them  into  Une  with  the  main  army  of  orthodox  Christians  ; 
so  that  all  together  may  at  length  set  forth  with  the 
momentum  of  united  millions,  in  the  power  of  the  ever- 
lasting Gospel,  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

BeUeve  me  to  be. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

N.  P.  Williams. 


PRINTED   IN   ENGLAND 
AT   THE   OXFORD    UNIVERSITY   PRESS 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-Series  444 


I  uo  ouu  r  ntHN  MtblUNAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  11 


5010    9 


BR 

121 

S21 


